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RE: a couple of questions

From: Farnsworth, Dave <DFarnsworth_at_Ashleyfurniture.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 09:33:30 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.0049A3C8.20020717093330@fatcity.com>


Rachel,

First question - Not a Clue. I'm on windoze. ;o)

Second Question - SQL_Variant datatype -I'll find out more about this. I have never used it.

A data type that stores values of various SQL Server-supported data types, except text, ntext, image, timestamp, and sql_variant. sql_variant may be used in columns, parameters, variables, and return values of user-defined functions. sql_variant allows these database objects to support values of other data types. A column of type sql_variant may contain rows of different data types. For example, a column defined as sql_variant can store int, binary, and char values. The only types of values that cannot be stored using sql_variant are text, ntext, image, timestamp, and sql_variant. sql_variant can have a maximum length of 8016 bytes. An sql_variant data type must first be cast to its base data type value Before participating in operations such as addition and subtraction. sql_variant may be assigned a default value. This data type also may have NULL as its underlying value, but the NULL values will not have an associated base type. In addition, sql_variant may not have another sql_variant as its base type. A UNIQUE, primary, or foreign key may include columns of type sql_variant, but the total length of the data values comprising the key of a given row should not be greater than the maximum length of an index (currently 900 bytes). A table may have any number of sql_variant columns. sql_variant cannot be used in CONTAINSTABLE and FREETEXTTABLE. ODBC does not fully support sql_variant. Hence, queries of sql_variant columns are returned as binary data when using Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC (MSDASQL). For example, an sql_variant column containing the character string data 'PS2091' is returned as 0x505332303931.

Dave

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 12:09 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Okay, I'm working on what feels like 30 new projects all at once and I WILL be RTFM'ing as soon as I can get more than 5 minutes out of meetings but....

first: has anyone heard of any problems with 64-bit Oracle on a Solaris 64-bit OS?

second (and this one confuses me a bit)... I've been asked if Oracle9i supports a "variant" datatype -- they are not familiar with oracle but are familiar with SQL Server and say that there is a datatype called "variant" there where you can basically overload the column with whatever datatype you want (string, number, date) and the database knows what type of data it is storing within the column. They referred me to C++ and Java, neither of which I know.

Can anyone point in the right direction to start researching this?

Thanks!

Rachel



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Author: Rachel Carmichael
  INET: wisernet100_at_yahoo.com
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Author: Farnsworth, Dave
  INET: DFarnsworth_at_Ashleyfurniture.com
Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Received on Wed Jul 17 2002 - 12:33:30 CDT

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