Data type

In the Ultra Transcenders books

DP-900PL-300

Each book explains Data type in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.

Terms in this definition

• DECIMAL

  Use DECIMAL(p,s) for money or any figure where floating-point rounding would be wrong. Precision p can be 1 to 38 and is 10 if left out; scale s is 0 if left out.

• VARCHAR

  Stores text of varying length, capped at a declared maximum, for example VARCHAR(50); it is part of standard SQL.

• Schema

  The middle part of a Unity Catalog name (catalog.schema.table), grouping tables, views, volumes, functions and models inside a catalog. A grant on it covers everything in it now and later, and nothing inside can be reached without USE SCHEMA.

Related terms

• CAST

  Converts a value to a different data type using the syntax CAST(expr AS type); this ANSI-standard T-SQL function errors out if the conversion can't be done.

• Container vector policy

  The vectorEmbeddings setting on an Azure Cosmos DB container, specifying for each vector path its number of dimensions, data type and distance function. You define it, together with vector indexes, when creating the container.

• CONVERT

  Works much like CAST, changing a value's data type in T-SQL, with the addition of an optional style number; 126, for instance, gives ISO 8601 dates.

• COUNTA

  Returns how many cells in a column are not blank, whatever the data type, so Boolean columns are handled too.

• Data category

  Tells Power BI what kind of thing a column's or measure's values represent, beyond the data type: a city, a postal code, a country or region, a web link or an image link, for example. You choose it on the Column tools tab.

• DATATABLE

  A DAX function for typing a small table of fixed values directly into a formula, with each column given a name and data type. It is handy for little static lookups, such as labels for bands.

• datetimeoffset

  A data type holding a date and time together with an offset from UTC between -14:00 and +14:00. The offset is lost when the value is converted to datetime2.

• Fixed decimal number

  A data type, shown as Currency.Type in Power Query, that always keeps four places after the decimal point and up to 19 significant digits. It stores values exactly, unlike the floating-point Decimal number, and cuts off any extra places.