Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 24 Hours, Second Edition

Summary

There are several data types available with SQL. If you have programmed in other languages, you probably recognize many of the data types mentioned. Data types allow different types of data to be stored in the database, ranging from simple characters to decimal points to date and time. The concept of data types is the same in all languages, whether programming in a third-generation language such as C and passing variables or using a relational database implementation and coding in SQL. Of course, each implementation has its own names for standard data types, but they basically work the same.

Care must be taken in planning for both the near and distant future when deciding on data types, lengths, scales, and precisions in which to store ...