Primitive Data types Selecting the correct data type assists you in the input, storage, and display of your data. BIGINTThe BIGINT data type is used for storing very large whole numbers.BYTEThe BYTE data type stores any type of binary data, such as images or sounds.BOOLEANThe BOOLEAN data type stores a logical value, TRUE or FALSE.CHAR(size)The CHAR data type is a fixed-length character string data type.DATEThe DATE data type stores calendar dates with a Year/Month/Day representation.DATETIME qual1 TO qual2The 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.FLOATThe FLOAT data type stores values as double-precision floating-point binary numbers with up to 16 significant digits.INTEGERThe INTEGER data type is used for storing large whole numbers.INTERVAL qual1 TO qual2The 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.SMALLFLOATThe SMALLFLOAT data type stores values as single-precision floating-point binary numbers with up to 8 significant digits.SMALLINTThe SMALLINT data type is used for storing small whole numbers.STRINGThe STRING data type is a variable-length, dynamically allocated character string data type, without limitation.TINYINTThe TINYINT data type is used for storing very small whole numbers.TEXTThe 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 conceptsType conversionsVariablesCompiling source files