Oracle Datatypes

Data types for Oracle 8 to Oracle 11g

Max Size: Oracle 8 Max Size: Oracle 9i/10g Max Size: Oracle 11g Max Size: PL/SQL PL/SQL Subtypes/ Synonyms

Datatype

Description

VARCHAR2(size)

Variable length character string having maximum lengthsize bytes. You must specify size

4000 bytes minimum is 1

4000 bytes minimum is 1

4000 bytes minimum is 1

32767 bytes minimum is 1

STRING VARCHAR

NVARCHAR2(size )

Variable length national character set string having maximum length size bytes. You must specify size

4000 bytes minimum is 1

4000 bytes minimum is 1

4000 bytes minimum is 1

32767 bytes minimum is 1

STRING VARCHAR

VARCHAR

Now deprecated (provided for backward compatibility only) VARCHAR is a synonym for VARCHAR2 but this usage may change in future versions.

CHAR(size)

Fixed length character data of length size bytes. This should be used for fixed length data. Such as codes A100, B102

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

32767 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

CHARACTE R

NCHAR(size)

Fixed length national character set data of length size bytes. This should be used for fixed length data. Such as codes A100, B102

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

2000 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

32767 bytes Default and minimum size is 1 byte.

Magnitude 1E-130 .. 10E125 maximum precision of 126 binary digits, which is roughly equivalent to 38 decimal digits The scale s can range from -84 to 127. For floating point don't specify p,s REAL has a maximum precision of 63 binary digits, which is roughly equivalent to 18 decimal digits

fixed-point numbers: DEC DECIMAL NUMERIC floatingpoint: DOUBLE PRECISION FLOAT binary_float (32 bit) binary_doubl e (64 bit) integers: INTEGER INT SMALLINT simple_intege r(10g) BOOLEAN REAL

NUMBER(p,s)

Number having precision pand scale s.

The precision p can range from 1 to 38. The scale s can range from -84 to 127.

The precision p can range from 1 to 38. The scale s can range from -84 to 127.

The precision p can range from 1 to 38. The scale s can range from -84 to 127.

PLS_INTEGER

signed integers PLS_INTEGER values require less storage and provide better performance than NUMBER values. So use PLS_INTEGER where you can!

PL/SQL only

PL/SQL only

PL/SQL only

magnitude range is -2147483647 .. 2147483647

BINARY_INTEGE R

signed integers (older slower version of PLS_INTEGER)

magnitude range is -2147483647 .. 2147483647

NATURAL NATURALN POSITIVE POSITIVEN SIGNTYPE

LONG

Character data of variable length (A bigger version the VARCHAR2 datatype)

2 Gigabytes

2 Gigabytes but now deprecated (provided for backward compatibility only).

2 Gigabytes - but now deprecated (provided for backward compatibility only).

32760 bytes Note this is smalller than the maximum width of a LONG column from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31,9999 AD. (in Oracle7 = 4712 AD)

DATE

Valid date range

from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31, 9999AD.

from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31, 9999 AD.

from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31, 9999 AD.

TIMESTAMP (fractional_seconds _precision)

the number of digits in the fractional part of the SECOND datetime field.

Accepted values offractional_s econds_precis ionare 0 to 9. (default = 6) Accepted values offractional_s econds_precis ionare 0 to 9. (default = 6)

Accepted values offractional_seco nds_precisionare 0 to 9. (default = 6)

TIMESTAMP (fractional_seconds _precision) WITH {LOCAL} TIMEZONE

As above with time zone displacement value

Accepted values offractional_seco nds_precisionare 0 to 9. (default = 6)

INTERVAL YEAR (year_precision) TO MONTH

Time in years and months, where year_precision is the number of digits in the YEAR datetime field.

Accepted values are 0 to 9. (default = 2)

Accepted values are 0 to 9. (default = 2)

INTERVAL DAY (day_precision) TO SECOND (fractional_seconds _precision)

Time in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. day_precision is the maximum number of digits in

day_precision may be 0 to 9. (default = 2)

day_precision m ay be 0 to 9. (default = 2) fractional_secon

'DAY' fractional_seconds_precision is the max number of fractional digits in the SECOND field. Raw binary data of length size bytes. You must specify size for a RAW value. Maximum size is 2000bytes fractional_sec onds_precisio nmay be 0 to 9. (default = 6) Maximum size is 2000 bytes 2 Gigabytes but now deprecated (provided for backward compatibility only)

ds_precisionmay be 0 to 9. (default = 6)

RAW(size)

Maximum size is 2000 bytes

32767 bytes

LONG RAW

Raw binary data of variable length. (not intrepreted by PL/SQL)

2 Gigabytes.

2 Gigabytes - but now deprecated (provided for backward compatibility only)

32760 bytes Note this is smalller than the maximum width of a LONG RAW column Hexadecimal string representing the unique address of a row in its table. (primarily for values returned by the ROWID pseudocolumn.) universal rowid Hex string representing the logical address of a row of an index-organized table, either physical, logical, or foreign (nonOracle)

ROWID

Hexadecimal string representing the unique address of a row in its table. (primarily for values returned by the ROWID pseudocolumn.)

10 bytes

10 bytes

10 bytes

UROWID

Hex string representing the logical address of a row of an index-organized table

The maximum size and default is 4000 bytes

The maximum size and default is 4000 bytes

The maximum size and default is 4000 bytes

SeeCHARTO ROWIDand the package:DB MS_ROWID

MLSLABEL

Binary format of an operating system label.This datatype is used with Trusted Oracle7. 8 TB to 128 TB

CLOB

Character Large Object

4Gigabytes

8 TB

(4 Gigabytes - 1) * (database block

size) 8 TB to 128 TB NCLOB National Character Large Object 4Gigabytes 8 TB (4 Gigabytes - 1) * (database block size) 8 TB to 128 TB BLOB Binary Large Object 4Gigabytes 8 TB (4 Gigabytes - 1) * (database block size) 8 TB to 128 TB BFILE pointer to binary file on disk 4Gigabytes 8 TB (4 Gigabytes - 1) * (database block size) Populate with XML from a CLOB or VARCHAR2. XMLType XML data 4 Gigabytes 4 Gigabytes or query from another XMLType column.

Notes and Examples VARCHAR2: Storing character data as Varchar2 will save space: Store 'SMITH' not 'SMITH '

Oracle9i and above allow Varchar2 columns to be defined as a number of bytes VARCHAR2(50 BYTE) or a number of characters VARCHAR2(50 CHAR), the latter is useful if the database is ever converted to run a double-byte character set (such as Japanese), you won't have to edit the column sizes. The default measure, normally BYTE, is set with nls_length_semantics. CHAR: Over time, when varchar2 columns are updated they will sometimes create chained rows, CHAR columns are fixed width they are not affected by this, so less DBA effort

is required to maintain performance. PL/SQL When retrieving data for a NUMBER column, consider using the PL/SQL datatype: PLS_INTEGER for better performance. LONG Use BLOB instead of LONG INTEGER This ANSI datatype will be accepted by Oracle - it is actually a synonym for NUMBER(38) The FLOAT datatype This ANSI datatype will be accepted by Oracle - Very similar to NUMBER it stores zero, positive, and negative floating-point numbers The NUMBER datatype Stores zero, positive, and negative numbers, fixed or floating-point numbers
Fixed-point NUMBER NUMBER(p,s) precision p = length of the number in digits scale s = places after the decimal point, or (for negative scale values) significant places before the decimal point. Integer NUMBER NUMBER(p) This is a fixed-point number with precision p and scale 0. Equivalent to NUMBER(p,0) Floating-Point NUMBER NUMBER floating-point number with decimal precision 38

PRECISION and SCALE Oracle stores all numeric data in variable length format - storage space is therefore dependent on the length of all the individual values stored in the table. Precision and scale settings do not affect storage requirements. SCALE may appear to be truncating data, but Oracle does still store the entire number as typed. PRECISION can be used to constrain input values.

If a column is defined like CREATE TABLE demo ( empid number(4) ); then an attempt to insert a 5 digit number 10045 will fail. If you need to constrain values to a specific range of numbers (e.g. <85 rather than the round number <100), then add a column constraint . Note that the Units of measure for PRECISION are different if the datatype is FLOAT: For NUMBER data types: precision p = Number of Digits For FLOAT data types: precision p = Binary Precision (multiply by 0.30103 to convert) So FLOAT = FLOAT (126) = 126 x 0.30103 = approx 37.9 digits of precision. In theory it is possible to save storage space by having an application truncate a fractional value before inserting into a table, but you would have to be very sure the business logic made sense. This would have to be done at the application level. If a table is created without any Precision/Scale CREATE TABLE demo ( empid number ); then the column will simply store values as given. When no scale is specified, the scale is zero. Example The value 7456123.89 will display as follows NUMBER 7456123.89 NUMBER(9) 7456124 NUMBER(9,1) 7456123.9 NUMBER(*,1) 7456123.9 NUMBER(9,2) 7456123.89 NUMBER(6) [not accepted exceeds precision] NUMBER(7,-2) 7456100 FLOAT 7456123.89 FLOAT(12) 7456000.0 Select COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE, DATA_LENGTH, DATA_PRECISION, DATA_SCALE From cols Where table_name = 'Your_Table';

Varchar2 data For VARCHAR2 variable whose maximum size is less than 2,000 bytes (or for a CHAR variable), PL/SQL allocates enough memory for the maximum size at compile time. For a VARCHAR2 whose maximum size is 2,000 bytes or more, PL/SQL allocates enough memory to store the actual value at run time. In this way, PL/SQL optimizes smaller VARCHAR2 variables for performance and larger ones for efficient memory use. For example, if you assign the same 500-byte value to VARCHAR2(1999 BYTE) and VARCHAR2(2000 BYTE) variables, PL/SQL allocates 1999 bytes for the former variable at compile time and 500 bytes for the latter variable at run time. Boolean data A common space-saving trick is storing boolean values as an Oracle CHAR, rather than NUMBER: Create TABLE my_demo (accountcode NUMBER, postableYN CHAR check (postableYN in (0,1)) ); -- Standard Boolean values: False=0 and True=1 Insert into my_demo values(525, '1'); Insert into my_demo values(526, '0'); Select accountcode, decode(postableYN,1,'True',0,'False') FROM my_demo; -- or in French: Select accountcode, decode(postableYN,1,'Vrai',0,'Faux') FROM my_demo;

Comparison with other RDBMS's

int10 Oracle 11 MS SQL Server 2008 MS SQL Server 2005 Sybase system 10 MS Access (Jet) TERADATA DB2 RDB INFORMIX RedBrick INGRES NUMBER(10) NUMERIC(10) NUMERIC(10) NUMERIC(10) Long Int or Double INTEGER INTEGER INTEGER INTEGER integer INTEGER int6 NUMBER(6) NUMERIC(6) NUMERIC(6) NUMERIC(6) Single DECIMAL(6) DECIMAL(6) DECIMAL(6) DECIMAL(6) int INTEGER int1 NUMBER(1) TINYINT TINYINT NUMERIC(1) Byte DECIMAL(1) DECIMAL(1) DECIMAL(1) DECIMAL(1) int INTEGER char(n) VARCHAR2(n) VARCHAR(max) VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) TEXT(n) VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) char(n) VARCHAR(n) blob BLOB IMAGE IMAGE IMAGE LONGBINARY VARBYTE(20480) VARCHAR(255) LONG VARCHAR BYTE char(1024) VARCHAR(1500) XML XMLType XML XML

Also consider the maximum length of a table name (or column name) and the maximum size of an SQL statement - these limits vary considerably between products and versions. Computer programmers do it byte by byte