Table 1-7 provides notes on the use of character data, national character data and mixed character data.

Table 1-7 Notes on use of character data, national character data and mixed character data

Item	Data type
	CHAR, NCHAR or MCHAR		VARCHAR, NVARCHAR or MVARCHAR
	Defined length
	1-255 (1-127)	256-30000 (128-15000)	1-255 (1-127)	256-32000 (128-16000)
Index definition	Y	Y*	Y	Y*
Sorting	Y	Y	Y	Y
Grouping	Y	Y	Y	Y
Set functions	Y	Y	Y	Y
Search conditions	Y	Y	Y	Y
Data insertion/updating	Y	Y	Y	Y
Exclusion of duplicates	Y	Y	Y	Y
Set operations	Y	Y	Y	Y

Y: Can be used.

( ): In the Defined length row, the values in parentheses are for national character data.

^* The total length of a column comprising an index must satisfy the following formula:

Total column length

MIN ((page-size-of-index-storage-RDAREA 2) - 1242, 4036)