Re: Physical Storage Requirements for NUMBER attributes.
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 14:48:57
Message-ID: <jjohnson.5.000ED14B_at_aphis.usda.gov>
In article <3kn6tk$5eh_at_inn-amct.atc.alcoa.com> DPWCC02.OBERLE02_at_SSW.ALCOA.COM (Oberle, John F.) writes:
>From: DPWCC02.OBERLE02_at_SSW.ALCOA.COM (Oberle, John F.)
>Subject: Physical Storage Requirements for NUMBER attributes.
>Date: 21 Mar 1995 18:46:12 GMT
>I have inherited a database with many fields having the default
>of NUMBER(38). In a similar ORACLE (DEC) Rdb database those
>fields are defined as integers which take 1 word to store. How
>much space does a NUMBER(38) take? Is there a way to dump data
>from an ORACLE database to examine what the physical storage
>looks like?
>Thanks in advance
The most this column will take is 20 characters
(amount needed to store the largest possible number--
38 significant digits, plus the sign)
I don't think space is taken up until you insert a
value in that column (it may use a few bytes). It
requires 1 byte for the sign and one for each 2 significant
digits. Do a vsize on empty columns to see if space is
being used. If it uses more than is reasonable and you are
not regularily filling that column with huge numbers,
consider redefining to just 'NUMBER' in your create table.
This allows you to put in any sized number, and only use
required space.
Received on Fri Mar 24 1995 - 14:48:57 CET