Physical Type Property of a Table Column

The following table describes the physical types that Siebel CRM supports. The Physical Type property identifies the physical type of the column in the Siebel database.

Physical Type	Description
Character	Stores text that is fixed in length. Also used for a Boolean column, which is a character column that contains a length of 1. You cannot use Char greater than 1, by default. To modify the default setting in Siebel Tools, you can click the View menu, Options, and then click the Database tab. Make sure the following option contains a check mark: Allow to create column of type ‘Character’ being greater than 1 If you define a Column as a Char column, and if the data that Siebel CRM stores in the column varies in length, then it pads the data with empty spaces in the Siebel database. It is recommend that you use the Varchar data type for all but Boolean columns that Siebel CRM defines as CHAR(1).
Character Large Object (CLOB)	For more information, see Extensive Code Examples That This Book Uses.
Date	Stores the date only, without time.
Date Time	Stores combined date and time in the same column.
Long	Stores long text. You can store approximately 16 KB of data in a Long column.
Number	Stores any numeric data. Typical numeric columns in Siebel CRM are 22,7 for typical numbers, and 10,0 for integers. For more information, see Physical Type Property of a Table Column.
Time	Stores time only, without the date.
UTC Date Time	Stores the date and time. Siebel CRM saves time in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Varchar	Stores text that varies in length. Used for most alphanumeric columns in the data objects layer, including ROW_ID, foreign key, list of values, and other free form text columns.

Character Large Object (CLOB) Physical Type

The Character Large Object (CLOB) physical type stores a large, variable amount of text. Siebel CRM version 8.0 and higher supports this text. CLOB is similar to Long, but it can contain much more data. In an Oracle database, the maximum size is (4 GB minus 1 byte) multiplied by the value in DB_BLOCK_SIZE.

Note the following requirements:

• A column in a Siebel table is limited to 128 KB of data. You cannot define a column of type CLOB that is greater than 128 KB.

• Siebel CRM allows no more than three CLOB columns for each table.

• In Siebel Tools, you can only set the physical type to CLOB when you define a column. You cannot modify a predefined column, such as a Long column, to a CLOB column.

• Siebel Tools displays the CLOB Physical Type as L (Long) in the Properties window.

• Microsoft SQL Server does not define a CLOB type. It treats a CLOB as a varchar(max) or nvarchar(max) object.

• To query on a DTYPE_CLOB field, you must use at least one wildcard in the search expression. You use an asterisk (*) to express a wildcard. For example, use TEST*. Do not use an equal sign (=) in the query. For example, do not use =TEST. If you use an equal sign, then Siebel CRM creates an error.

Maximum Number of Digits for a Numeric Physical Type

If the Physical Type property of a table column is Numeric, then the table column can contain up to 16 digits. Note the following for the numeric physical type:

• As Siebel CRM increases the number of digits it uses before the decimal point, the number of usable digits after the decimal point decreases by an equal amount.

• Data is limited to 16 digits without a decimal point.

• If you use a decimal point, then data is limited to 15 digits before the decimal point.

• You cannot use more than 7 digits after the decimal point.

• You cannot modify precision or scale properties to modify this support.

• Some rounding errors can occur with a 16 or 15 digit number.