Why is the size of V_String a huge integer?

[nyck3333]

From the Python tool example, what is 2147483647?

Industry': {'type': 'V_String',
  'length': 2147483647,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''},
 'Name': {'type': 'V_String',
  'length': 2147483647,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''},
 'Age': {'type': 'Int32',
  'length': 4,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''},
 'YearsOfEducation': {'type': 'Int32',
  'length': 4,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''},
 'YearsAtCurrentJob': {'type': 'Int32',
  'length': 4,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''},
 'Salary': {'type': 'Int32',
  'length': 4,
  'source': 'TextInput:',
  'description': ''}}

In [5]:

# write out the data with the original

[Yoshiro_Fujimori]

Hi @nyck3333 ,

To directly answer to your question, 

2,147,483,647 = 2^31 − 1.

Though I don't have any evidence, I guess V_String data type deals with the characters in it with the index of 32 bit length.

And V_String does not use up your disk.

The help page https://help.alteryx.com/20231/designer/data-types#string-data says;

"It is more efficient to store strings as variable-length strings.

This is because fixed-length strings reserve space for the specified number of characters,

and variable-length strings use only the amount of storage needed for the data in that cell.

Set a high limit for fixed-length strings to avoid truncating data."

So you can rest assured.

But if you are not sure, you may want to compare the size of output files with V_String and String with the same data.

[danilang]

Hi @nyck3333 

To summarize @Yoshiro_Fujimori's comment, the listed size is the maximum size of a V_String.  When running, only the actual length of the string(plus a little overhead) is allocated.

Dan