I have a problem with varchar2 in oracle.

First I declared a column using CHAR(1)
STATUS CHAR(1)
Then later I alter that collumn to VARCHAR2(10). 

Now, everytime I insert new value to the column, it always right-pad
with space to lenght 10. I am sure that the column data type is
VARCHAR2(10) and it should not have this problem since VARCHAR2 stores
variable-lenght character string.

Is it suppose to hapen when I alter column from CHAR(1) to
VARCHAR2(10)? what could be wrong here?

Thanks
lhb

in sqlplus type desc thetablename
What does the definition say?

it says VARCHAR2(10)

Please state your database version and OS.
For example: I have a 9.2.0.6 Oracle Database running on SuSE Linux 9.

... Also state how you insert a new record.

Please run below test on you database and provide results. Generally
use of "dump" is the best way to debug column content.

Database: 9.2.0.1

SQL> create table x ( c char(1) );

Table created.

SQL> insert into x values ( 'x' );

1 row created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> alter table x modify c varchar2(10);

Table altered.

SQL> select dump(c) from x;

DUMP(C)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Typ=1 Len=1: 120

SQL>