title: How many bytes does Oracle use when storing a single character?
body: <p>I tried to look here:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/datatype.htm#i3253" rel="noreferrer">http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/datatype.htm#i3253</a></p>
  
  <p>And I understand that I have to provide string length for the column, I'm just not able to find out how many bytes oracle uses when storing a character. My limit is 500 characters, so if its 1 byte / character, I can create the column with 500, if its 2 byte / character then 1000, etc.</p>
  
  <p>Anyone have a link to the documentation or know for certain?</p>
  
  <p>In case it matters, the SQL is being called from PHP, so these are PHP strings I'm inserting into the database. 
  Thanks.</p>