Are Postgres btree index keys compressed?

Question

v8.4 and v9.2 (Yes, I know they're archaic and out of support, but there's nothing I can do about it.)

Some of the tables in the database which I manage (but don't design) have btree indexes on CHARACTER VARYING(256) fields. Even when the field values aren't all blank, the length of the data in them is no more than 12 characters.

Yes, the physical table storage for these columns is highly compressed, but what about the btree indexes? Would the indexes be more efficient if the columns were altered down to VARCHAR(12)?

Thanks

Answer 1

"Would the indexes be more efficient if the columns were altered down to VARCHAR(12)?"

No, and that is easy to test:

create table foo(val1 varchar(256), val2 varchar(12));
create index i_foo1 on foo(val1);
create index i_foo2 on foo(val2);

insert into foo(val1,val2)
select 'ABCDEFGHIJ','ABCDEFGHIJ'
from generate_series(1,10000);

vacuum full;

select relname, pg_size_pretty(pg_relation_size(c.oid))
from pg_class c join pg_namespace n on n.oid = c.relnamespace
where nspname like 'fiddle%';

relname | pg_size_pretty
:------ | :-------------
foo     | 512 kB        
i_foo1  | 392 kB        
i_foo2  | 392 kB        

dbfiddle here

"Yes, the physical table storage for these columns is highly compressed…"

It isn't compressed (unless the string is long), it's just that for varchar (unlike char) the length specifier is merely a constraint that determines the maximum length:

The storage requirement for a short string (up to 126 bytes) is 1 byte plus the actual string, which includes the space padding in the case of character. Longer strings have 4 bytes of overhead instead of 1. Long strings are compressed by the system automatically, so the physical requirement on disk might be less.