[Zope] sql varchar truncated?

[Scott Lewis]

hi,

i'm having a little problem that i hope someone might have some 
insight on.

i'm using Zope with MS SQL Server 7.0, via the ODBC database 
adapter. i have a database field called 'description', which is a 
varchar of length 500. when i write and read back a value via SQL 
methods, the description string is truncated to about 250 
characters.

it looks like MS SQL is receiving the full string. if i try to write more 
than 500 chars, i get a SQL error. if i write less than 500, i get no 
error. but when i read back the string via a select SQL method, i 
only get back ~250 characters. i can't verify at the moment what's 
in the database- i'm FAR away. i've got an email to the DBA to 
check it out, but i was hoping somewhere here might have an idea 
of the problem.

is a string variable limited to 256 chars in python or zope?

i tested the SQL methods directly from zope, to insure that 
something wasn't happening with HTTP.

thanks in advance for any help,

-scott

included below are the contents of the the two SQL methods 
(pretty straightforward...):

the write method:
insert into tblTrainingEvent (Title, Statewide, AreaID, description) 
values ('', 1, 1,<!--#sqlvar description type=string-->)

the read method:
select description from tblTrainingEvent where
<!--#sqltest id column=ID type=int-->