Data Type Limitations

This topic lists the supported data types, their descriptions, and their limitations.

An administrator or semantic model developer can use this information to evaluate whether a particular data type is suitable for a given column or set of values, and to determine whether the data type is capable of representing all the required values.

For example, the INTEGER column in the Oracle database supports a very large range of values, up to 38 decimal digits, but the INTEGER data type in Oracle Analytics is a 32-bit binary integer type that's capable of holding up to nine digits without encountering data overflow (truncation) issues. If the column holds values in the range of [-2,147,483,648, 2,147,483,647], then you should use the INTEGER data type. However, if the column stores values larger than this range, then you should use another data type such as NUMERIC or VARCHAR.

Choose the smallest, in bytes, data type that's capable of representing the column's expected range of values. Choosing a data type in this way reduces the amount of memory and disk space consumed by the Oracle BI Server for cache files, temp files, and so on.

Data Type	Limitations
BIG INT	JDBC and the Semantic Modeler don't support this type; therefore, Oracle Analytics doesn't fully support the BIG INT type. The BIG INT type is intended to be same as the C int64 data type.
BINARY	Oracle Analytics doesn't fully support the BINARY type. Oracle Analytics supports only the fetching of columns whose data type is BINARY. The Oracle Analytics query engine doesn't support the BINARY type in bind parameters or insert statements.
BIT	Oracle Analytics doesn't fully support the BIT type. Instead, you should use either the INT or CHAR type to represent Boolean data.
CHAR	The CHAR type's values are always padded with ending spaces that can equal up to the length specified by the data type. The CHAR type supports Unicode values.
DATE	The DATE type represents only year, month, and day components. DATE type doesn't represent hours, minutes, or seconds like the Oracle DATE data type.
DECIMAL	The DECIMAL type is the same as the NUMERIC type.
DOUBLE	The DOUBLE type is the same as the IEEE 754 64-bit double-precision binary floating-point data type. The internal storage is eight bytes. The significand occupies 53 bits (including the sign bit). Therefore, the precision is limited to approximately 16 decimal digits. The exponent occupies 11 bits. The range of the exponent is approximately ±307 as a base 10 decimal value. See Floating Point Limitations.
INTEGER	The INTEGER type is a signed binary integer data type occupying four bytes. The maximum value that can be represented is 2,147,483,647, and the minimum value is -2,147,483,648.
FLOAT	The FLOAT type is the same as the IEEE 754 32-bit single-precision binary floating-point data type. The internal storage is four bytes. The significand occupies 24 bits (including the sign bit). Therefore, the precision is limited to approximately 7 decimal digits. The exponent occupies eight bits. The range of the exponent is approximately ±38 as a base 10 decimal value. See Floating Point Limitations.
LONGVARBINARY	The LONGVARBINARY type supports up to 32,678 bytes.
LONGVARCHAR	The LONGVARCHAR type supports up to 32,678 bytes. Both the LONGVARCHAR type and the VARCHAR type support Unicode values.
NUMERIC	The NUMERIC type is a true decimal data type occupying 22 bytes. The internal representation and limitations are the same as the Oracle NUMBER data type. The NUMERIC type supports positive numbers in the range of 1 x 10^-130 to 9.999...9 x 10^125 with up to 38 significant digits. The precision and scale aren't stored in the semantic model. The scale is assumed to be 10.
REAL	The REAL type has the same description and limitations as the FLOAT type.
SMALLINT	The SMALLINT type is represented as the INTEGER type internally in the Oracle Analytics query engine and has the same limitations as the INTEGER data type.
TIME	The TIME type represents only hour, minute, and second components.
TIMESTAMP	The TIMESTAMP type represents year, month, day, hour, minute, and second components. For some data sources on some platforms, it can also support fractions of a second.
TINYINT	The TINYINT type is represented as an INTEGER internally in the Oracle Analytics query engine. The TINYINT type and INTEGER type have the same limitations.
VARBINARY	The VARBINARY type is interchangeable with the LONGVARBINARY type. The VARBINARY type and the LONGVARBINARY type have the same limitations.
VARCHAR	The VARCHAR type is interchangeable with the LONGVARCHAR type. The VARCHAR type and LONGCARCHAR type have the same limitations. Semantic Modeler allows users to enter a maximum character length of 2,147,483,647. However, the actual maximum length supported is 32,678.