Accomodate more data in a Oracle column without increasing size

Question

I have a scenario where I would like to know if we can accommodate more characters to an Oracle column without increasing the column size.

I have a Oracle column bname which is of type varchar2(256). The column is getting updated via Java code. I would like to know if there is any way to accommodate more than 256 characters in this column without increasing the size?

Wanted to know if there are any column compression techniques available to accommodate the same?

Answer 1

Use smaller font. Just kidding.

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As far as I can tell, you can't do that. 256 is the limit you set, so - the only option is to

alter table that_table modify bname varchar2(500);

Depending on database version, you can go up to 4000 characters (or 32767, if MAX_STRING_SIZE is set to extended). If that's not enough, CLOB is your choice.

If you want to stored compressed data, then use BLOB datatype (so you'd e.g. put a ZIP file into that column).

~ o ~

Or, perhaps you could alter the table and add another column:

alter table that_table add bname_1 varchar2(256);

and make your Java code "split" value in two parts and store the first 256 characters into bname, and the rest into bname_1.

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Other than that, no luck, I'm afraid.