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NUMBER data type

The NUMBER data type supports applications that use the Oracle NUMBER data type. This capability
does not apply to the Entry plan of the Db2® Warehouse on Cloud managed service.

Effects
When the NUMBER data type is explicitly encountered in SQL statements, the data type is implicitly
mapped as follows:
– If you specify NUMBER without precision and scale attributes, it is mapped to DECFLOAT(16).
– If you specify NUMBER(p), it is mapped to DECIMAL(p).
– If you specify NUMBER(p,s), it is mapped to DECIMAL(p,s).

The maximum supported precision is 31, and the scale must be a positive value that is no greater than
the precision. Also, a result of the implicit mapping, messages refer to data types DECFLOAT and
DECIMAL instead of NUMBER. In addition, any operations that describe data types for columns or
routines return either DECIMAL or DECFLOAT instead of NUMBER.

Tip: The DECFLOAT(16) data type provides a lower maximum precision than that of the Oracle
NUMBER data type. If you need more than 16 digits of precision for storing numbers in
columns, then explicitly define those columns as DECFLOAT(34).

Numeric literal support is unchanged: the rules for integer, decimal, and floating-point constants
continue to apply. These rules limit decimal literals to 31 digits and floating-point literals to the range of
binary double-precision floating-point values. If necessary, you can use a string-to-DECFLOAT(34) cast,
using the CAST specification or the DECFLOAT function, for values beyond the range of DECIMAL or
DOUBLE up to the range of DECFLOAT(34). There is currently no support for a numeric literal that ends
in either D, representing 64-bit binary floating-point values, or F, representing 32-bit binary floating-
point values. A numeric literal that includes an E has the data type of DOUBLE, which you can cast to
REAL using the CAST specification or the cast function REAL

If you cast NUMBER data values to character strings, using either the CAST specification or the
VARCHAR or CHAR scalar function, all leading zeros are stripped from the result.

The default data type that is used for a sequence value in the CREATE SEQUENCE statement is
DECIMAL(27) instead of INTEGER.

All arithmetic operations and arithmetic or mathematical functions involving DECIMAL or DECFLOAT
data types are effectively performed using decimal floating-point arithmetic and return a value with a
data type of DECFLOAT(34). This type of performance also applies to arithmetic operations where both
operands have a DECIMAL or DECFLOAT(16) data type, which differs from the description of decimal
arithmetic in the “Expressions with arithmetic operators” section of Expressions. Additionally, all
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division operations involving only integer data types (SMALLINT, INTEGER, or BIGINT) are effectively
performed using decimal floating-point arithmetic. These operations return a value with a data type of
DECFLOAT(34) instead of an integer data type. Division by zero with integer operands returns infinity
and a warning instead of an error.

In some cases function resolution is also changed, such that an argument of data type DECIMAL is
considered to be a DECFLOAT value during the resolution process. Also functions with arguments that
correspond to the NUMBER(p[,s]) data type are effectively treated as if the argument data types were
NUMBER. However, this change in function resolution does not apply to the set of functions that have a
variable number of arguments and base their result data types on the set of data types of the
arguments. The functions included in this set are as follows:
– COALESCE
– DECODE
– GREATEST
– LEAST
– MAX (scalar)
– MIN (scalar)
– NVL
– VALUE

In addition to the general changes to numeric functions, a special consideration also applies to the MOD
function; if the second argument in the MOD function is zero, then the function returns the value of the
first argument.
For more information on how the rules for result data types are extended to make DECFLOAT(34) the
result data type if the precision of a DECIMAL result data type would have exceeded, see Rules for result
data types. These rules also apply to the following items:
– Corresponding columns in set operations: UNION, EXCEPT(MINUS), and INTERSECT
– Expression values in the IN list of an IN predicate
– Corresponding expressions of a multiple row VALUES clause

The rounding mode that is used for assignments and casts depends on the data types that are involved.
In some cases, truncation is used. In cases where the target is a binary floating-point (REAL or DOUBLE)
value, round-half-even is used, as usual. In other cases, usually involving a DECIMAL or DECFLOAT
value, the rounding is based on the value of the decflt_rounding database configuration parameter.
The value of this parameter defaults to round-half-even, but you can set it to round-half-up to match the
Oracle rounding mode. The following table summarizes the rounding that is used for various numeric
assignments and casts.

Table 1. Rounding for numeric assignments and casts

Target data type

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Target data type

Integer types not applicable not applicable decflt_rounding round_half_even

DECIMAL decflt_rounding decflt_rounding decflt_rounding round_half_even

DECFLOAT decflt_rounding decflt_rounding decflt_rounding round_half_even

REAL/DOUBLE truncate decflt_rounding decflt_rounding round_half_even

String (cast
not applicable decflt_rounding decflt_rounding round_half_even
only)
The Db2 decimal floating-point values are based on the IEEE 754R standard. Retrieval of DECFLOAT
data and casting of DECFLOAT data to character strings removes any trailing zeros after the decimal
point.
In a database with NUMBER support enabled, the built-in functions STDDEV, VAR and VARIANCE with
integer input returns DECFLOAT instead of DOUBLE. Any view column or materialized query table (MQT)
column with a result type that depends on this function continues to return the old result type until the
view or MQT is regenerated or recreated. In the case of an MQT, any queries that previously routed to
the MQT will not longer do so until the MQT is recreated.

Client-server compatibility
Client applications working with a database server that you enable for NUMBER data type support never
receive a NUMBER data type from the server. Any column or expression that would report NUMBER from
an Oracle server report either DECIMAL or DECFLOAT from a database server.

Because an Oracle environment expects the rounding mode to be round-half-up, it is important that the
client rounding mode match the server rounding mode. This means that the db2cli.ini file setting
must match the value of the decflt_rounding database configuration parameter. To most closely
match the Oracle rounding mode, you should specify ROUND_HALF_UP for the database configuration
parameter.

Restrictions
NUMBER data type support has the following restrictions:
– There is no support for the following items:
▪ A precision attribute greater than 31
▪ A precision attribute of asterisk (*)
▪ A scale attribute that exceeds the precision attribute
▪ A negative scale attribute
There is no corresponding DECIMAL precision and scale support for NUMBER data type specifications.

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– You cannot invoke the trigonometric functions or the DIGITS scalar function with arguments of data
type NUMBER without a precision (DECFLOAT).
– You cannot create a distinct type with the name NUMBER.

Parent topic:
Compatibility features for Oracle

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