GeoNames Forum

In the readme.txt file found in http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/ the column size is reported to be 4000

alternatenames : alternatenames, comma separated varchar(4000)

After importing the file into our database SQL Server 2008, this does not seem to be the case:

Code:

SELECT ID, LEN(AlternateNames) AS Length FROM AllCountries WHERE LEN(AlternateNames) > 4000

Results:
Code:

ID          Length
 ----------- --------------------
 3577815     4887
 290557      4995
 239880      4760
 2410758     4348
 1873107     4432
 2635167     4865
 3277605     4473
 203312      4808
 3474415     4189

Funny on our postgres db it is varchar(4000).

I assume SQL Server is counting the bytes and not the characters, with exotic characters needing two or more bytes. I will make a small note on the documentation.

Marc