Oracle 8 Data Types

Code

Internal Datatype

Description

1

VARCHAR2(size)

NVARCHAR2(size)

Variable length character string having maximum length size bytes. Maximum size is 4000, and minimum is 1. You
must specify size for a VARCHAR2.

Variable-length character string having maximum length size characters or bytes, depending on
the choice of national character set. Maximum size is determined by the number of bytes required to store each
character, with an upper limit of 4000 bytes. You must specify size for NVARCHAR2.

2

NUMBER(p,s)

Number having precision p and scale s. The
precision p can range from 1 to 38.
The scale s can range from -84 to
127.

8

LONG

Character data of variable length up to 2 gigabytes, or 231
-1 bytes.

12

DATE

Valid date range from January 1, 4712 BC to December 31,
4712 AD.

23

RAW(size)

Raw binary data of length size bytes. Maximum size
is 2000 bytes. You must specify size for
a RAW value.

24

LONG RAW

Raw binary data of variable length up to 2 gigabytes.

69

ROWID

(see note below)

Hexadecimal string representing the unique address of a
row in its table. This datatype is primarily for
values returned by the ROWID pseudocolumn.

96

CHAR(size)

NCHAR(size)

Fixed length character data of length size bytes. Maximum size
is 2000 bytes. Default and minimum size
is 1 byte.

Fixed-length character data of length size characters or bytes, depending on the choice of national
character set. Maximum size is
determined by the number of bytes required to store each character, with an
upper limit of 2000 bytes. Default and minimum size is 1 character or 1 byte, depending on the character set.

106

MLSLABEL

Binary format of an operating system label. This datatype is used for backward compatibility with Trusted
Oracle.

112

CLOB

NCLOB

A character large object containing single byte
characters. Varying-width character sets are not supported. Maximum size is 4
gigabytes.

A character large object containing fixed-width multi-byte
characters. Varying-width character sets are not supported. Maximum size is 4
gigabytes. Stores national character set data.

113

BLOB

A binary large object. Maximum size is 4 gigabytes.

114

BFILE

Contains a locator to a large binary file stored outside the
database. Enables byte stream I/O access to external LOBs
residing on the database server. Maximum size is 4 gigabytes.