Frank Miles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Seq scan for '=' and for 'LIKE'; no locale support enabling. As Len > Morgan suggested, it appears to be a matter of LIKE being sensitive to > trailing spaces, and '=' NOT being sensitive to them. The field data type > is char(16) {not stated in my original message}. Bingo. '=' for char(N) fields is not sensitive to trailing spaces, per SQL specs. But LIKE does not have a variant for char(N), it's purely a "text" operation; so it thinks spaces are significant. As near as I can tell, the SQL spec does not have any provision that requires ignoring trailing blanks in a LIKE comparison on char(N), which seems rather an oversight on their part. I tend to think that char(N) is evil and should be avoided in favor of varchar or text. Those trailing spaces are just too likely to cause confusion; and when do they buy you anything? regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://www.postgresql.org/search.mpl