Re: Timestamp vs. Date Datatype

From: Enrique Fernandez-Pampillon <oracle.pampillon_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 16:21:53 +0200
Message-ID: <7ba974f50510050721r7d324140pd30b7835aa89dcab@mail.gmail.com>

Hello everybody,

If wa look inside the date and timestamp types :

SQL> select dump(to_date('20051001','yyyymmdd')) from dual;

DUMP(TO_DATE('20051001','YYYYMMD

Typ=13 Len=8: 7,213,10,1,0,0,0,0

SQL> select dump(to_timestamp('20051001','yyyymmdd')) from dual;

DUMP(TO_TIMESTAMP('20051001','YYYYMMDD'))

Typ=187 Len=20: 7,213,10,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,0,0,0,0,0

Using timestamp instead of date makes us to waste 12 bytes per field (indexes and data). All the DB operations I/O, .... are much more efficient with date fields.
If my data doesn't have fractional second precision, I've never use timestamp type.
HTH
Enrique
On 10/5/05, Tracy Rahmlow <tracy.rahmlow_at_ampf.com> wrote:
>
> Why did Oracle introduce the timestamp datatype vs. enhancing the date
> datatype's precision? Is everyone migrating to the timestamp datatype? Why
> would anyone want to use the date datatype anymore? It appears to me that
> the timestamp does everything that the date datatype does and more. The
> granularity and computations that can be performed with the timestamp
> datatype appear to be much better. Thanks
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--
------------------------------------------------
Enrique

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Received on Wed Oct 05 2005 - 09:24:57 CDT