Chapter 6: Using and Creating Datatypes

Exact numeric types: integers

Adaptive Server provides datatypes bigint, int, smallint, tinyint, unsigned bigint, unsigned int, and unsigned smallint to store integers (whole numbers). These types are exact numeric types; they preserve their accuracy during arithmetic operations.

Choose among the integer types based on the expected size of the numbers to be stored. Internal storage size varies by datatype.

Implicit conversion from any integer type to a different integer type is supported only if the value is within the range of the type being converted to.

Unsigned integer datatypes allow you to extend the range of the positive numbers for the existing integer types without increasing the required storage size. That is, the signed versions of these datatypes extend both in the negative direction and the positive direction (for example, from -32 to +32). However, the unsigned versions extend only in the positive direction. Table 6-2 describes the range of the signed and unsigned versions of these datatypes.

**Table 6-2: Ranges for signed and unsigned datatypes**
Datatype	Range of signed datatypes	Datatype	Range of unsigned datatypes
bigint	Whole numbers between -2⁶³ and 2⁶³ - 1 (from -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to +9,223,372,036,854,775,807, inclusive	unsigned bigint	Whole numbers between 0 and 18,446,744,073,709,551,615
int	Whole numbers between -2³¹ and 2³¹ - 1 (-2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647), inclusive	unsigned int	Whole numbers between 0 and 4,294,967,295
smallint	Whole numbers between -2¹⁵ and 2¹⁵ -1 (-32,768 and 32,767), inclusive	unsigned smallint	Whole numbers between 0 and 65535

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