Re: Internal vs. External datatypes [question]

In article <3igbsv$67q_at_transfer.stratus.com>, Harold Almon <hala_at_shared.com> writes:
|> Does anyone know if ORACLE stores the external datatype
|> definition of a column in any of its internal tables?
|> I have read that the DESCRIBE statement returns the
|> internal datatype but I really need to know the way
|> the column was described in the CREATE TABLE statement.
|>
|> From what I understand, if I use
|>
|> age INTEGER;
|>
|> in a CREATE TABLE statement, the DESCRIBE will return
|> decimal(10,0) as the datatype. What I'm trying to
|> find is that age was defined as a INTEGER.

You need to look at the precision and scale information. In your example, the scale is 0. So you know that the column can't store floating point values, and can assume INTEGER. Note that if the column was defined as NUMBER (no precision or scale specified) than both will be zero. Received on Mon Feb 27 1995 - 19:49:59 CET