Storage Formats of Data Types

SQL Reference Guide > SQL Reference Guide > Understanding SQL Data Types > Storage Formats of Data Types

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The following table describes how each data type is stored:

Data Type	Description	Range
char	character	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
c	character	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
varchar	character	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
long varchar	character	A string of 1 to 2 GB characters
text	character	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
nchar	Unicode	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size, but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
nvarchar	Unicode	A string of 1 to maximum configured row size, but not exceeding 32,000 bytes
long nvarchar	Unicode	A string of 1 to a maximum of 1 GB Unicode characters (that is, 2 bytes to a maximum of 2 GB in length)
tinyint	1-byte integer	-128 to +127
smallint	2-byte integer	-32,768 to +32,767
integer	4-byte integer	-2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647
bigint	8-byte integer	-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to +9,223,372,036,854,775,807
decimal	fixed-point exact numeric	Depends on precision and scale. Default is (5,0): ‑99999 to +99999. Maximum number of digits is 39.
float4	4-byte floating	-1.0e+38 to +1.0e+38 (7 digit precision)
float	8-byte floating	-1.0e+38 to +1.0e+38
ansidate	4-byte binary	0001-01-01 to 9999-12-31
time	10-byte binary	00:00:00 to 23:59:59
timestamp	14-byte binary	0001-01-01 00:00:00 to 9999-12-31 23:59:59
interval year to month	3-byte binary	-9999-0 to 9999-11
interval day to second	12-byte binary	-3652047 00:00:00 to 3652047 23:59:59
ingresdate	ingresdate (12 bytes)	1-jan-0001 to 31-dec-9999 (for absolute dates) and -9999 years to +9999 years (for time intervals)
money	money (8 bytes)	$-999,999,999,999.99 to $999,999,999,999.99
table_key	logical key	No range: stored as 8 bytes
object_key	logical key	No range: stored as 16 bytes
ipv4	4-byte binary	0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255
ipv6	16-byte binary	:: to ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
byte	binary	Fixed length binary data, 1 to maximum configured row size
byte varying	binary	Variable length binary data, 1 to maximum configured row size
long byte	binary	1 to 2 GB of binary data
uuid	128-bit integer	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 to FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF
boolean	1-byte binary	0 or 1

Nullable columns require one additional byte to store a null indicator.

Note: If your hardware supports the IEEE standard for floating point numbers, the float type is accurate to 14 decimal precision (-dddddddddddd.dd to +dddddddddddd.dd) and ranges from -10**308 to +10**308. The money type is accurate to 14 decimal precision with or without IEEE support.

Note: Ingres stores dates in GMT. If an Ingresdate is entered in a local time zone, the date when converted to GMT must be in the range stated above.

Last modified date: 11/28/2023