LVARCHAR Data Type

The LVARCHAR type of Informix® can store up to 32,739 bytes of text, but if you specify no size in an LVARCHAR data type declaration, the default length is 2,048 bytes. LVARCHAR is a built-in opaque data type. Unlike most of the built-in opaque types, LVARCHAR column values can be accessed in a database of a non-local Informix® instance in a distributed query or other DML operations, and LVARCHAR can be the data type of a parameter or of a returned value of a UDR that accesses data outside the local database.

Informix® uses the LVARCHAR data type in cross-server I/O operations on opaque data types. In this context, the maximum size of the LVARCHAR data value is limited only by the operating system.

Light scans during query execution are not supported on tables that include LVARCHAR columns, unless the BATCHEDREAD_TABLE configuration parameter (or the BATCHEDREAD_TABLE session environment option) is set to 1.