{"id":1142,"date":"2007-10-25T19:38:59","date_gmt":"2007-10-25T19:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/Just-how-long-should-you-make-character-fields-Whats-the-longest-word.aspx"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:52:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:52:06","slug":"just-how-long-should-you-make-character-fields-whats-the-longest-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/just-how-long-should-you-make-character-fields-whats-the-longest-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Just how long should you make character fields? What&#8217;s the longest word?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>Ok &#8211; this post is a little strange and fun. I was thinking about word length and how it relates to designing software\/schemas to support multiple-languages. How far do you have to go in your research to figure out the maximum string length to support? So I started digging about and found some interesting things about words. Here are some examples.<\/P><br \/>\n<UL><br \/>\n<LI>If you&#8217;re putting together a schema to support hospital patient records, you might have a field for disease name. In that case, you&#8217;d have to allow for <STRONG>pnuemonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis<\/STRONG> which has 45 letters (caused by breathing in siliceous volcanic dust). A field for surgical procedure would have to support <STRONG>hepaticocholangiocholecystenterostomies<\/STRONG> which has 37 letters (creating a connection between the gall bladder and the hepatic duct). What about a field for how a measurement was obtained &#8211; <STRONG>electroencephalographically<\/STRONG> with 27 letters (using an electroencephalograph).<br \/>\n<LI>A schema to support chemical names could really be unlimited given the nature of systematic names for chemicals. The longest one in the dictionary is an acid called <STRONG>tetramethyldiaminobenzhydrylphosphinous<\/STRONG> with 39 letters (and given a few minutes I could probably draw its chemical structure by following the systematic method I learned at school :-)). The longest <EM>published<\/EM> chemical name is a kind of tobacco mosaic virus &#8211; <STRONG>ACETYLACETYL-SERYL-TYROSYL-SERYL-ISO-LEUCYL-THREONYL-SERYL-PROLYL-SERYL-GLUTAMINYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-VALYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-LEUCYL-SERYL-SERYL-VALYL-TRYPTOPHYL-ALANYL-ASPARTYL-PROLYL-ISOLEUCYL-GLUTAMYL-LEUCYL-LEUCYL-ASPARAGINYL-VALYL-CYSTEINYL-THREONYL-SERYL-SERYL-LEUCYL-GLYCYL-ASPARAGINYL-GLUTAMINYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-GLUTAMINYL-THREONYL-GLUTAMINYL-GLUTAMINYL-ALANYL-ARGINYL-THREONYL-THREONYL-GLUTAMINYL-VALYL-GLUTAMINYL-GLUTAMINYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-SERYL-GLUTAMINYL-VALYL-TRYPTOPHYL-LYSYL-PROLYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-PROLYL-GLUTAMINYL-SERYL-THREONYL-VALYL-ARGINYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-PROLYL-GLYCYL-ASPARTYL-VALYL-TYROSYL-LYSYL-VALYL-TYROSYL-ARGINYL-TYROSYL-ASPARAGINYL-ALANYL-VALYL-LEUCYL-ASPARTYL-PROLYL-LEUCYL-ISOLEUCYL-THREONYL-ALANYL-LEUCYL-LEUCYL-GLYCYL-THREONYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-ASPARTYL-THREONYL-ARGINYL-ASPARAGINYL-ARGINYL-ISOLEUCYL-ISOLEUCYL-GLUTAMYL-VALYL-GLUTAMYL-ASPARAGINYL-GLUTAMINYL-GLUTAMINYL-SERYL-PROLYL-THREONYL-THREONYL-ALANYL-GLUTAMYL-THREONYL-LEUCYL-ASPARTYL-ALANYL-THREONYL-ARGINYL-ARGINYL-VALYL-ASPARTYL-ASPARTYL-ALANYL-THREONYL-VALYL-ALANYL-ISOLEUCYL-ARGINYL-SERYL-ALANYL-ASPARAGINYL-ISOLEUCYL-ASPARAGINYL-LEUCYL-VALYL-ASPARAGINYL-GLUTAMYL-LEUCYL-VALYL-ARGINYL-GLYCYL-THREONYL-GLYCYL-LEUCYL-TYROSYL-ASPARAGINYL-GLUTAMINYL-ASPARAGINYL-THREONYL-PHENYL-ALANYL-GLUTAMYL-SERYL-METHIONYL-SERYL-GLYCYL-LEUCYL-VALYL-TRYPTOPHYL-THREONYL-SERYL-ALANYL-PROLYL-ALANYL-SERINE<\/STRONG> &#8211; with 1185 letters.<br \/>\n<LI>Probably the one that&#8217;s going to catch most people out is place names. The bank Kimberly and I use won&#8217;t allow a town\/city name of more than 30 characters. That&#8217;s fine for the USA, where the longest place name has 24 letters (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Winchester-on-the-Severn\"><STRONG>Winchester-on-the-Severn<\/STRONG><\/a> in Maryland or <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Washington-on-the-Brazos\"><STRONG>Washington-on-the-Brazos<\/STRONG><\/a> in Texas). However, if the back-end database is coded to only support 30 characters, that wouldn&#8217;t work around the world:<br \/>\n<UL><br \/>\n<LI><br \/>\n<DIV align=left>In Wales, there are two longest names are <STRONG>Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch<\/STRONG> with 58 letters and <STRONG>Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogleddolonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion<\/STRONG> wth 66 letters. <\/DIV><br \/>\n<LI><br \/>\n<DIV align=left>In New Zealand, there&#8217;s a hill called <STRONG>Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu<\/STRONG> &#8211; 85 letters and that name used to be in general use.<\/DIV><\/LI><\/UL><\/LI><\/UL><br \/>\n<P>Pretty interesting &#8211; or as my kids like to say <STRONG>supercalafragalisticexpialidocious<\/STRONG>! (34 letters :-))<\/P><br \/>\n<P>I&#8217;d be interested to hear of longest words in other languages apart from English &#8211; please leave a comment. Thanks<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ok &#8211; this post is a little strange and fun. I was thinking about word length and how it relates to designing software\/schemas to support multiple-languages. How far do you have to go in your research to figure out the maximum string length to support? So I started digging about and found some interesting things [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Just how long should you make character fields? What&#039;s the longest word? - Paul S. 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