Talk:View (SQL)

The statement, "Views do not incur any extra storage overhead" is not entirely correct. A view does not require as much space as a/the table(s) that it represents, but it requires space to store the view definition. In Microsoft SQL Server, a view's text/definition is stored in the table syscomments and takes one row per every 4000 bytes of text in the definition of said view. Other databases would have to store the view definition somewhere, so it is a small, but a non-zero number, regarding the amount of space that a view takes. We have views that can contain four or five rows of data for our ERP system.

I think the point the article was making was that a view can provide columns from multiple tables but does not require the actual storage space to hold that result set. Wwphx 19:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)wwphx[reply]

Right, but I agree that it sounds funny. I'll try to make it more correct without making it confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.170.62 (talk) 22:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indicate advantages and disadvantages of views; help in understanding the concept's relevancy