database padding space if the value inserted has smaller length than column size- DB2

I was checking if DB pads spaces in a column if the inserted string has fewer characters than the designated length of the column. Example:

lets say size of <column1> is 10 but the value entered is abc – then is it abc_______ which the DB stores where _ represents spaces?

I am asking because I used LTRIM-RTRIM while INSERTing the values and on again fetching the value in the very next minute I got the result as abc_______.

Answer

You are using the CHAR or CHARACTER datatype for the column. The CHAR or CHARACTER datatype is a fixed length datatype and is padded with space at the end of the value to fill the column size.

You can use VARCHAR to avoid the padding with spaces at the end of the values.

Note: Make sure you are using CHARACTER_LENGTH on CHARACTER columns to get the correct character length (without padding spaces). The result of LENGTH also includes the padding spaces.

demo on dbfiddle.uk