Field Size

A database / data entry term.

All data entry fields have a default maximum size. For example a single line input field often has a 255 character limit, whilst a text box limit may be 65,000 characters.

But it is often a good idea to reduce this limit to match the expected size of the data. For example a reasonable character size for an username may be a maximum of 20 characters, or a telephone number perhaps 12-15 characters.

The reason being that this makes the database more efficient, as allowing 255 characters for every field when only 10 characters are normal is a waste of storage.

2020-10