SQL Server 2014 Development Essentials

The importance of choosing the appropriate data type

A data type determines the type of data that can be stored in a database table column. When you create a table, you must decide on the data type to be used for the column definitions. You can also use data types to define variables and store procedure input and output parameters. You must select a data type for each column or variable appropriate for the data stored in that column or variable. In addition, you must consider storage requirements and choose data types that allow for efficient storage. For example, you should always use tinyint instead of smallint, int, or bigint if you want to store whole positive integers between 0 and 255. This is because tinyint is a fixed 1-byte field, whereas ...