RetroSearch Browse

Home - News ( United States | United Kingdom | Italy | Germany ) - Football scores

Showing content from https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sql/sql-data-types/ below:

SQL Data Types - GeeksforGeeks

SQL Data Types

Last Updated : 08 Aug, 2025

In SQL, each column must be assigned a data type that defines the kind of data it can store, such as integers, dates, text, or binary values. Choosing the correct data type is crucial for data integrity, query performance and efficient indexing.

Benefits of using the right data type:

Memory-efficient storage
Accurate operations (e.g., calculations, sorting)
Consistency in stored values
Validation of input data

SQL data types are broadly categorized into several groups:

1. Numeric Data Types

Numeric data types are fundamental to database design and are used to store numbers, whether they are integers, decimals or floating-point numbers. These data types allow for mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which makes them essential for managing financial, scientific and analytical data.

Exact Numeric Datatype

Exact numeric types are used when precise numeric values are needed, such as for financial data, quantities, and counts. Some common exact numeric types include:

Data Type Description Range BIGINT Large integer numbers -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 INT Standard integer values -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647 SMALLINT Small integers -32,768 to 32,767 TINYINT Very small integers 0 to 255 DECIMAL Exact fixed-point numbers (e.g., for financial values) -10^38 + 1 to 10^38 - 1 NUMERIC Similar to DECIMAL, used for precision data -10^38 + 1 to 10^38 - 1 MONEY For storing monetary values -922,337,203,685,477.5808 to 922,337,203,685,477.5807 SMALLMONEY Smaller monetary values -214,748.3648 to 214,748.3647 Approximate Numeric Datatype

These types are used to store approximate values, such as scientific measurements or large ranges of data that don't need exact precision.

Data Type Description Range FLOAT Approximate numeric values -1.79E+308 to 1.79E+308 REAL Similar to FLOAT, but with less precision -3.40E+38 to 3.40E+38 2. Character and String Data Types

Character data types are used to store text or character-based data. The choice between fixed-length and variable-length data types depends on the nature of your data.

Data Type Description

Char

The maximum length of 8000 characters. (Fixed-Length non-Unicode Characters)

Varchar

The maximum length of 8000 characters. (Variable-Length non-Unicode Characters)

Varchar(max)

The maximum length of 2^31 - 1 characters(SQL Server 2005 only). (Variable Length non-Unicode data)

Text

The maximum length of 2,127,483,647 characters(Variable Length non-Unicode data)

Unicode Character String Data Types

Unicode data types are used to store characters from any language, supporting a wider variety of characters. These are given in below table.

Data Type

Description

Nchar

The maximum length of 4000 characters(Fixed-Length Unicode Characters)

Nvarchar

The maximum length of 4000 characters.(Variable-Length Unicode Characters)

Nvarchar(max)

The maximum length of 2^31 - 1 characters(SQL Server 2005 only). (Variable Length Unicode data)

3. Date and Time Data Type

SQL provides several data types for storing date and time information. They are essential for managing timestamps, events and time-based queries. These are given in the below table.

Data Type Description

Storage Size

DATE

stores the data of date (year, month, day)

3 Bytes

TIME

stores the data of time (hour, minute,second)

3 Bytes

DATETIME

store both the data and time (year, month, day, hour, minute, second)

8 Bytes

4. Binary Data Types in SQL

Binary data types are used to store binary data such as images, videos or other file types. These include:

Data Type Description Max Length Binary Fixed-length binary data. 8000 bytes VarBinary Variable-length binary data. 8000 bytes Image Stores binary data as images. 2,147,483,647 bytes 5. Boolean Data Type in SQL

The BOOLEAN data types are used to store logical values, typically TRUE or FALSE. It is commonly used for flag fields or binary conditions.

6. Special Data Types

SQL also supports some specialized data types for advanced use cases:

XML Data Type: Used to store XML data and manipulate XML structures in the database
Spatial Data Type (Geometry): stores planar spatial data, such as points, lines, and polygons, in a database table.

RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue

Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo

HTML: 3.2 | Encoding: UTF-8 | Version: 0.7.4