String Types & Platform Traps

String types seem simple, but they differ across platforms in ways that cause real production issues. VARCHAR length limits, CHAR padding behavior, and TEXT vs VARCHAR semantics vary between PostgreSQL, MySQL, Snowflake, and BigQuery. Code that works on one platform can silently truncate data on another. Platform Differences That Bite UTF-8 and Character vs Byte Length VARCHAR(100) means 100 characters in PostgreSQL but 100 bytes in some MySQL configurations. A single emoji or CJK character can be 3-4 bytes in UTF-8. A VARCHAR(100) column in byte-mode MySQL can only hold 25 four-byte characters. Always confirm whether your database measures string length in characters or bytes.