Joel Matthew <rees@ddcom.co.jp> writes:
>> ... the length will be stored first (4 bytes)
>> and the actual content following it
> Section 8.3 of the manual seems to indicate that the actual character
> data is stored in a separate file (background table -- I guess that
> might not be a separate file?) for text, unspecified width char, and
> char fields which exceed the specified length.
We may push very-wide fields out to a separate table ("toast table").
This has nothing to do with whether the field is text, varchar(n),
unspecified varchar, or whatever, but only with the physical size
of the data.
regards, tom lane