13/02/13 Data Types

Data Types
SQL Server 2000 178 out of 258 rated this helpful

In Microsoft® SQL Server™, each column, local variable, expression, and parameter has a related data type, which is an
attribute that specifies the type of data (integer, character, money, and so on) that the object can hold. SQL Server
supplies a set of system data types that define all of the types of data that can be used with SQL Server. The set of
system-supplied data types is shown below.

User-defined data types, which are aliases for system-supplied data types, can also be defined. For more information
about user-defined data types, see sp_addtype and Creating User-defined Data Types.

When two expressions that have different data types, collations, precision, scale, or length are combined by an
operator:

The data type of the resulting value is determined by applying the rules of data type precedence to the data
types of the input expressions. For more information, see Data Type Precedence.

If the result data type is char, varchar, text, nchar, nvarchar, or ntext, the collation of the result value is
determined by the rules of collation precedence. For more information, see Collation Precedence.

The precision, scale, and length of the result depend on the precision, scale, and length of the input expressions.
For more information, see Precision, Scale, and Length.

SQL Server provides data type synonyms for SQL-92 compatibility. For more information, see Data Type Synonyms.

Exact Numerics
Integers
bigint

Integer (whole number) data from -2^63 (-9,223,372,036,854,775,808) through 2^63-1 (9,223,372,036,854,775,807).

int

Integer (whole number) data from -2^31 (-2,147,483,648) through 2^31 - 1 (2,147,483,647).

smallint

Integer data from -2^15 (-32,768) through 2^15 - 1 (32,767).

tinyint

Integer data from 0 through 255.

bit
bit

Integer data with either a 1 or 0 value.

decimal and numeric

decimal

Fixed precision and scale numeric data from -10^38 +1 through 10^38 –1.

numeric

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Functionally equivalent to decimal.

money and smallmoney

money

Monetary data values from -2^63 (-922,337,203,685,477.5808) through 2^63 - 1 (+922,337,203,685,477.5807), with
accuracy to a ten-thousandth of a monetary unit.

smallmoney

Monetary data values from -214,748.3648 through +214,748.3647, with accuracy to a ten-thousandth of a monetary
unit.

Approximate Numerics
float

Floating precision number data with the following valid values: -1.79E + 308 through -2.23E - 308, 0 and 2.23E + 308
through 1.79E + 308.

real

Floating precision number data with the following valid values: -3.40E + 38 through -1.18E - 38, 0 and 1.18E - 38
through 3.40E + 38.

datetime and smalldatetime

datetime

Date and time data from January 1, 1753, through December 31, 9999, with an accuracy of three-hundredths of a
second, or 3.33 milliseconds.

smalldatetime

Date and time data from January 1, 1900, through June 6, 2079, with an accuracy of one minute.

Character Strings
char

Fixed-length non-Unicode character data with a maximum length of 8,000 characters.

varchar

Variable-length non-Unicode data with a maximum of 8,000 characters.

text

Variable-length non-Unicode data with a maximum length of 2^31 - 1 (2,147,483,647) characters.

Unicode Character Strings

nchar

Fixed-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 4,000 characters.

nvarchar

Variable-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 4,000 characters. sysname is a system-supplied user-defined
data type that is functionally equivalent to nvarchar(128) and is used to reference database object names.

ntext

Variable-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 2^30 - 1 (1,073,741,823) characters.

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Variable-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 2^30 - 1 (1,073,741,823) characters.

Binary Strings
binary

Fixed-length binary data with a maximum length of 8,000 bytes.

varbinary

Variable-length binary data with a maximum length of 8,000 bytes.

image

Variable-length binary data with a maximum length of 2^31 - 1 (2,147,483,647) bytes.

Other Data Types

cursor

A reference to a cursor.

sql_variant

A data type that stores values of various SQL Server-supported data types, except text, ntext, timestamp, and
sql_variant.

table

A special data type used to store a result set for later processing .

timestamp

A database-wide unique number that gets updated every time a row gets updated.

uniqueidentifier

A globally unique identifier (GUID).

See Also
CREATE PROCEDURE

CREATE TABLE

DECLARE @local_variable

EXECUTE

Expressions

Functions

LIKE

SET

sp_bindefault

sp_bindrule

sp_droptype

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sp_help

sp_rename

sp_unbindefault

sp_unbindrule

Using Unicode Data

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