Table A-1 lists accurate numeric types. A few of these types have synonyms for compatibility. A synonym for INTEGER is INT. Synonyms for TINYINT are BIT, BOOL, and BOOLEAN. The datatypes DEC, NUMERIC, and FIXED are synonyms for DECIMAL. If UNSIGNED is used with DECIMAL, negative values are not allowed. The DECIMAL datatype is similar to floating-point numbers, but it's a fixed-point number. MySQL stores numbers in DECIMAL columns as strings. Therefore, although a numeric range appears in Table A-1, a larger number may be stored in a DECIMAL column. It may be retrieved and displayed as a string, but in a numeric context (i.e., as part of a calculation), it cannot exceed the values shown in the table.
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