phpMyAdmin: what size should I enter when adding a new index for a varchar field?

[aloeroot]

Hi folks - a newbie question, with apologies. I have a table with only 14,500 rows, which is not likely to increase much over time. I’m trying to index one varchar field (255 chars) to enable fulltext searching, and phyMyAdmin is asking me to enter a size value for the index. I have no idea what this number should be, or indeed how to look up the answer. Thanks.

[SJH]

Best bet is to leave it blank. For a VARCHAR column the index length is entirely optional.

If you have to enter a value, then go for 255.

The length is simply the number of bytes included in the index. So if you specify 100, only the first 100 bytes of the column would be indexed.

[r937]

@aloeroot

I’m trying to index one varchar field (255 chars) to enable fulltext searching

you have to use the whole column

@da manual

Only the MyISAM table type supports FULLTEXT indexes and only for CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns. Indexing always happens over the entire column and partial (prefix) indexing is not supported.

[aloeroot]

Thanks r937 - I should have said I was trying to index the column. SJH - thanks so much!