Data types Selecting the correct data type assists you in the input, storage, and display of your data. BIGINT The BIGINT data type is used for storing very large whole numbers. BYTE The BYTE data type stores any type of binary data, such as images or sounds. BOOLEAN The BOOLEAN data type stores a logical value, TRUE or FALSE. CHAR(size) The CHAR data type is a fixed-length character string data type. DATE The DATE data type stores calendar dates with a Year/Month/Day representation. DATETIME qual1 TO qual2 The DATETIME data type stores date and time data with time units from the year to fractions of a second. DECIMAL(p,s) The DECIMAL data type is provided to handle large numeric values with exact decimal storage. FLOAT The FLOAT data type stores values as double-precision floating-point binary numbers with up to 16 significant digits. INTEGER The INTEGER data type is used for storing large whole numbers. INTERVAL qual1 TO qual2 The INTERVAL data type stores spans of time as Year/Month or Day/Hour/Minute/Second/Fraction units. MONEY(p,s) The MONEY data type is provided to store currency amounts with exact decimal storage. SMALLFLOAT The SMALLFLOAT data type stores values as single-precision floating-point binary numbers with up to 8 significant digits. SMALLINT The SMALLINT data type is used for storing small whole numbers. STRING The STRING data type is a variable-length, dynamically allocated character string data type, without limitation. TINYINT The TINYINT data type is used for storing very small whole numbers. TEXT The TEXT data type stores large text data. VARCHAR(size) The VARCHAR data type is a variable-length character string data type, with a maximum size. Related concepts Type conversions Variables Compiling source files