Skip to main content

varchar and text

Learning Focus

Use this lesson to choose text vs varchar(n) in PostgreSQL and enforce real business rules without unnecessary migrations.

Overview​

In PostgreSQL:

  • text and varchar are both variable-length strings.
  • Performance is typically similar.

Use varchar(n) only when the max length is a real business rule.

Enforcing length​

Two equivalent approaches:

name varchar(120) NOT NULL

-- or
name text NOT NULL CHECK (length(name) <= 120)

Case-insensitive text​

PostgreSQL extension citext provides a case-insensitive text type:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS citext;

CREATE TABLE users (
  user_id bigint GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY,
  email citext UNIQUE NOT NULL
);

What's Next​