Skip Headers
Oracle® Database SQL Language Quick Reference
11g Release 2 (11.2)

Part Number E10593-02
Go to Documentation Home
Home
Go to Book List
Book List
Go to Table of Contents
Contents
Go to Index
Index
Go to Master Index
Master Index
Go to Feedback page
Contact Us

Go to previous page
Previous
Go to next page
Next
View PDF

Overview of Data Types

A data type is a classification of a particular type of information or data. Each value manipulated by Oracle has a data type. The data type of a value associates a fixed set of properties with the value. These properties cause Oracle to treat values of one data type differently from values of another.

The data types recognized by Oracle are:

ANSI-supported data types

{ CHARACTER [VARYING] (size)
| { CHAR | NCHAR } VARYING (size)
| VARCHAR (size)
| NATIONAL { CHARACTER | CHAR }
     [VARYING] (size)
| { NUMERIC | DECIMAL | DEC }
     [ (precision [, scale ]) ]
| { INTEGER | INT | SMALLINT }
| FLOAT [ (size) ]
| DOUBLE PRECISION
| REAL
}

Oracle built-in data types

{ character_datatypes
| number_datatypes
| long_and_raw_datatypes
| datetime_datatypes
| large_object_datatypes
| rowid_datatypes
}

Oracle-supplied data types

{ any_types
| XML_types
| spatial_types
| media_types
| expression_filter_type
}

User-defined data types

User-defined data types use Oracle built-in data types and other user-defined data types to model the structure and behavior of data in applications.