HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 7 Data Types Every value in SQL belongs to some data type. A data type is associated with each value retrieved from a table, each constant, and each value computed in an expression. This chapter discusses data types. The following sections are presented: * Type Specifications * Value Comparisons * Overflow and Truncation * Underflow * Type Conversion * Null Values * Decimal Operations * Date/Time Operations * Binary Operations * Long Operations * Native Language Data A data type defines a set of values. Reference to a previously defined data type is a convenient way of specifying the set of values that can occur in some context. For example, in SQL the type INTEGER is defined as the set of integers from -2,147,483,648 through +2,147,483,647, plus the special value NULL. If you define a column with type INTEGER, each value stored in the column must be either an integer in the range -2,147,483,648 through +2,147,483,647, or a null value (if NOT NULL is not specified).