What cons would I have if using, for example, a 2000 character varchar2 database table field for storing mixed content like textarea input (close to 2000 characters), but also use it for storing textbox input (realistically ~30 characters)? This solution is more complicated than I wrote here, so I would like to leave it, however it would be great if you could point out the disadvantages here.
a varying character column is only as long as its content, but never longer than its max
i don’t see any downside at all to what you’ve got
Yes, I understand about the column and the length of content. Good to hear that there are no disadvantages that I didn’t know about. Thanks!