The NCHAR data type stores character data in a fixed-length
field as a string of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and
other characters that are supported by the code set of your database locale.
The syntax of the NCHAR data type is as follows.
Notes:
1 See Informix® Guide to SQL:
Syntax.
Element
Description
size
Specifies the number of bytes in the column. The total length
of an NCHAR column cannot exceed 32,767 bytes. If you do not specify size,
the default is NCHAR(1).
Because the length of this column is fixed, when
the database server retrieves or sends an NCHAR value, it transfers
exactly size bytes of data. If the length of a character string
is shorter than size, the database server extends the string
with spaces to make up the size bytes. If the string is longer
than size bytes, the database server truncates the string.