Data types

SQL Guide : Data types

Data types

The tables in this section list the supported data types by category.

Abbreviation	Description
DEFLEN	The defined length of the column; for example, for CHAR(24) the precision and length is 24
DEFPREC	The defined precision; for example, for NUMERIC(10,3) it is 10
DEFSCALE	The defined scale; for example, for NUMERIC(10,3), it is 3
MAXLEN	The maximum length of column
N/A	Not applicable

Explanation of column values in the data type tables

Size (range)

The size (range) of a numeric column refers to the minimum and maximum values the column can store.

The size of character columns refers to the maximum length of data that can be stored in the column of that data type.

Precision

The precision of a numeric column refers to the maximum number of digits used by the data type of the column.

The precision of a non-numeric column refers to the defined length of the column.

Scale The scale of a numeric column refers to the maximum number of digits to the right of the decimal point. For the approximate floating point number columns, the scale is undefined because the number of digits to the right of the decimal point is not fixed.

Length

The length of a column is the maximum number of bytes returned to the application when data is transferred to its default C type.

For character data, the length does not include the null termination byte. The length of a column may differ from the number of bytes needed to store the data on the data source.

Display size

The display size of a column is the maximum number of bytes needed to display data in character form.