SQL Server provides all different kinds of data types in order to give you more flexibility and control over how you store your data. You define these data types as you define the columns in your tables. If you wanted to store information about the date and time that a purchase was made online, you’re going to store the values in a column (or columns) that define dates and times in order to ensure accuracy in your data.
Choosing a Data TypeYou could make the data type into one that stores just about anything you give it, such as one of the character types like char or varchar. But do this and you’re going to run into issues when you start running queries against that data. For example, your business may ask for the amount of time between purchases. Since you chose to store the date and time as character values, you won’t be able to use some of the functions provided by the date and time data types. Instead, you’ll have to either convert your data into date and time data types or you’ll have to write your own functions. But, if you used the datetime data types, you get all that functionality and more, such as date/time formatting for different countries and validation that the date and time you’re entering are valid dates and times, as well as Universal Time Code (UTC) values and offsets. The same thing is true of all the various data types. You don’t have to use a specific data type, but you’re sacrificing functionality if you don’t try to specify a data type appropriate to the business need.
No comments:
Post a Comment