Character & String Types

CHAR/CHARACTER

Stores fixed-length character data. Specify a max character length using CHAR[(maximum_size [CHAR | BYTE] )], otherwise it will default to 1 byte. Pads with spaces to fill its max size. Just use VARCHAR2.

VARCHAR2/STRING

Stores variable-length character data. Syntax is the same as char but it doesn't pad with spaces.

RAW

Stores binary data or byte strings.

CLOB

Stores large blocks of character data such as text files.