Datatype Synonyms

SQL Server uses different names for some datatypes than those that are specified by the ANSI-92 standard. Microsoft has accommodated this by providing synonyms for these. However, even if you specify the synonym, it will be translated and stored as the equivalent SQL Server datatype. The available synonyms are listed in Table 12.7.

Table 12.7. ANSI-92 Synonyms and SQL Server Equivalents

ANSI-92 Synonym	SQL Server 2000 Datatype
binary varying	varbinary
char varying	varchar
character	char
character	char(1)
character( n )	char( n )
character varying( n )	varchar( n )
dec	decimal
double precision	float
float[( n )] for n = 1-7	real
float[( n )] for n = 8-15	float
integer	int
national character( n )	nchar( n )
national char( n )	nchar( n )
national character varying( n )	nvarchar( n )
national char varying( n )	nvarchar( n )
national text	ntext
rowversion	timestamp