Data types in a meta-schema have the same meaning for every supported database type.
If needed, the data type will be converted to the appropriate target database type when
generating a database creation / update script. See the SQL adaptation guides in the
Genero Business Development Language User Guide for more information on the use of data
types in your database.
Table 1. Common data types
| Type |
Description |
| BIGINT |
The BIGINT data type is used for storing very large whole numbers. |
| BIGSERIAL |
The BIG SERIAL data type produces automatic integer sequences.
BIGSERIAL is based on 64 bit integer sequences. |
| BOOLEAN |
The BOOLEAN data type stores a logical value, TRUE or FALSE. |
| BYTE |
The BYTE data type stores any type of binary data, such as images or
sounds. |
| CHAR |
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 |
The DATETIME data type stores date and time data with time units from the
year to fractions of a second. |
| DECIMAL |
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. |
| SERIAL |
The SERIAL data type produces automatic integer sequences.
SERIAL is based on 32 bit integer sequences. |
| 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. |
| TEXT |
The TEXT data type stores large text data. |
| VARCHAR |
The VARCHAR data type is a variable-length character string data type, with
a maximum size. It is converted to the appropriate target database type when generating database
creation / update script. |
Table 2. Informix specific data types
| Type |
Description |
| INTERVAL |
The INTERVAL data type stores spans of time as Year/Month or
Day/Hour/Minute/Second/Fraction units. |
| MONEY |
The MONEY data type is provided to store currency amounts with exact decimal
storage. |
| NCHAR / NVARCHAR |
IBM® Informix® supports the standard NCHAR and NVARCHAR
data types. These types are equivalent to CHAR and VARCHAR (the
same character set is used), except that the collation order is locale specific with
NCHAR/ NVARCHAR types. |
Informix specific types should be avoided when designing databases. A warning is displayed when a
column uses an Informix specific type: INT8, INTERVAL, MONEY, NCHAR, NVARCHAR, NVARCHAR2, SERIAL8.
To correct this warning convert columns to a common data type:
- INT8 to BIGINT
- MONEY to DECIMAL
- SERIAL8 to BIGSERIAL
- NCHAR / NVARCHAR / NVARCHAR2 to CHAR / VARCHAR and check the Use national char
types option when generating database scripts
- avoid using INTERVAL
Note: The internal data type is used when generating database creation / update scripts or when
working with the Business Application Modeler. However, if you edit a data type in a schema from the
extracted database, the generic data type used in the creation of the schema might change the
internal data type. For example, a column extracted from an Informix® database of type
INT8 will be displayed in the schema as BIGINT. If the you change
the type definition in the schema back to BIGINT, the database creation / update
scripts will this time create a column of type BIGINT in the Informix®
database.