FixedString(N)

A fixed-length string of N bytes (neither characters nor code points).

To declare a column of FixedString type, use the following syntax:

<column_name> FixedString(N)

Where N is a natural number.

The FixedString type is efficient when data has the length of precisely N bytes. In all other cases, it is likely to reduce efficiency.

Examples of the values that can be efficiently stored in FixedString-typed columns:

The binary representation of IP addresses (FixedString(16) for IPv6).
Language codes (ru_RU, en_US ... ).
Currency codes (USD, RUB ... ).
Binary representation of hashes (FixedString(16) for MD5, FixedString(32) for SHA256).

To store UUID values, use the UUID data type.

When inserting the data, ClickHouse:

Complements a string with null bytes if the string contains fewer than N bytes.
Throws the Too large value for FixedString(N) exception if the string contains more than N bytes.

Let's consider the following table with the single FixedString(2) column:



INSERT INTO FixedStringTable VALUES ('a'), ('ab'), ('');

SELECT
    name,
    toTypeName(name),
    length(name),
    empty(name)
FROM FixedStringTable;

┌─name─┬─toTypeName(name)─┬─length(name)─┬─empty(name)─┐
│ a    │ FixedString(2)   │            2 │           0 │
│ ab   │ FixedString(2)   │            2 │           0 │
│      │ FixedString(2)   │            2 │           1 │
└──────┴──────────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┘

Note that the length of the FixedString(N) value is constant. The length function returns N even if the FixedString(N) value is filled only with null bytes, but the empty function returns 1 in this case.

Selecting data with WHERE clause return various result depending on how the condition is specified:

If equality operator = or == or equals function used, ClickHouse doesn't take \0 char into consideration, i.e. queries SELECT * FROM FixedStringTable WHERE name = 'a'; and SELECT * FROM FixedStringTable WHERE name = 'a\0'; return the same result.
If LIKE clause is used, ClickHouse does take \0 char into consideration, so one may need to explicitly specify \0 char in the filter condition.

SELECT name
FROM FixedStringTable
WHERE name = 'a'
FORMAT JSONStringsEachRow

{"name":"a\u0000"}


SELECT name
FROM FixedStringTable
WHERE name = 'a\0'
FORMAT JSONStringsEachRow

{"name":"a\u0000"}


SELECT name
FROM FixedStringTable
WHERE name = 'a'
FORMAT JSONStringsEachRow

Query id: c32cec28-bb9e-4650-86ce-d74a1694d79e

{"name":"a\u0000"}


SELECT name
FROM FixedStringTable
WHERE name LIKE 'a'
FORMAT JSONStringsEachRow

0 rows in set.


SELECT name
FROM FixedStringTable
WHERE name LIKE 'a\0'
FORMAT JSONStringsEachRow

{"name":"a\u0000"}