SQL DATA TYPES
CHAR AND VARCHAR
CHAR(X)
Fixed-length character data type. It
always reserves a specified length (X)
for the data, padding with spaces if
necessary.
Example: If we have a char(10) and we
want to add “Water” in the field, it will
appear later as: “Water ” leaving 5
spaces that we didn’t use.
VARCHAR(X)
Variable-length character data type. It
only stores the actual characters entered,
without padding with spaces.
Example: If we have a varchar(20) and
we want to add “Watermelon” in the
field, it will appear later as
“Watermelon”.
KEY DIFERENCIES
Varchar and char stores basic characters while nvarchar and nchar stores Unicode
characters, allowing for a broader range of characters from different languages and in
consequence provides support for those.
CHAT GPT SAYS…
“If you anticipate dealing with data in different languages, especially those with
characters not present in the ASCII character set, it's recommended to use the
Unicode counterparts (NCHAR and NVARCHAR). If your application or data is
primarily in English or another language that doesn't require Unicode, you can use
the non-Unicode counterparts (CHAR and VARCHAR).”
TINY INT, SMALL INT,
MEDIUM INT, INT, BIG INT
TAKE IN ACCOUNT THAT…
it’s not necessary to use a big int to store ages for example. Remember that the
choice depends of what you want to store.

DECIMAL/NUMERIC AND
FLOAT/REAL
Decimal/Numeric
Used for storing fixed-point numbers. It
allows you to specify the precision (total
number of digits) and scale (number of
digits after the decimal point).
Example: A decimal(3,2) stores 3-digits
numbers where 2 of them are decimals.
So I can store 1.23 but not 12.5.
The term "float" comes from
the idea that the decimal (or
binary) point can "float"
relative to the significant
digits of the number. In
other words, the decimal
point can be moved to
represent values of different
Float/Real magnitudes.
Used for storing floating-point numbers
with a decimal precision.
In this case, Float data can have
different quantities of decimals.
Example: A float can be 125.45689 and
also 1.25.
CHAT GPT SAYS…
“DECIMAL is used for exact numeric representation, suitable for financial
calculations. FLOAT is an approximate numeric representation, suitable for scientific
calculations.”
DATE, TIME, DATETIME, AND
TIMESTAMP
BLOB AND CLOB
Stores binary data that comes from
images or multimedia files. It’s called
BLOB because of “Binary Large
Object”.
Stores a large amount of characters data,
such as text documents (tales, news,
articles, etc.). It’s called CLOB because
of “Character large object”.