[TYPO3-dam] impossible column changes from varchar to char

[Christoforos Christou]

Hello,

I have the problem, that in the "install tool" under "compare" I always get 
the message

Changing fields:
----------------
ALTER TABLE tx_dam CHANGE index_type index_type char(4) NOT NULL default '';
  Current value: varchar(4) NOT NULL default ''
ALTER TABLE tx_dam_log_index CHANGE type type char(4) NOT NULL default '';
  Current value: varchar(4) NOT NULL default ''

I run the database-update several times, also manual from phpMyAdmin and the 
mysql prompt, but without success on changing the field-type and ..without 
any error message. After a while I found this in the mySQL Reference:

----------------------
7.7.1 Silent Column Specification Changes
- ...
- If any column in a table has a variable length, the entire row is 
variable-length as a result. Therefore, if a table contains any 
variable-length columns (VARCHAR, TEXT, or BLOB), all CHAR columns longer 
than three characters are changed to VARCHAR columns. This doesn't affect 
how you use the columns in any way; in MySQL, VARCHAR is just a different 
way to store characters. MySQL performs this conversion because it saves 
space and makes table operations faster.
- ...
----------------------

So I think, it doesn't matter if the columns "index_type" and "type" just 
stay as varchar(4). Is this right?
Maybe its enough to change the SQL-Statements in the installation of DAM to:
- index_type varchar(4) NOT NULL
- type varchar(4) NOT NULL


Christoforos