Interbase/Firebird Data Types

This article describes the data types supported by Interbase 6.x and Firebird 2.x and earlier.

Overview

Data Type	Parameters and Range

Character Data Types
CHAR(n) - Fixed-length character data	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32767/charsize, default is 1
NCHAR(n) - Fixed-length character data in ISO8859_1 (Latin 1)	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32767, default is 1

Interbase/Firebird - CHAR
Syntax	CHAR[(n)]
Data	Fixed-length character data, single-byte and multibyte character sets
Parameters	n is the maximum number of characters, optional
Range	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32767/charsize
Default	n is 1
Padding	Right-padded with spaces to n
Character Set	Database default, unless it is specified using the CHARACTER SET clause
Storage Size	n*charsize bytes
Synonyms	CHARACTER
Standards	ANSI SQL

Interbase/Firebird CHAR - Equivalents in Other Databases

Interbase/Firebird - NCHAR
Syntax	CHAR[(n)]
Data	Fixed-length single-byte character data in ISO8859_1 (Latin 1) character set
Parameters	n is the maximum number of characters, optional
Range	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32767
Default	n is 1
Padding	Right-padded with spaces to n
Storage Size	n
Synonyms	CHAR CHARACTER SET ISO8859_1
Standards	ANSI SQL

Interbase/Firebird NCHAR - Equivalents in Other Databases

Database	Data Type and Conversion
Oracle	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 2000/charsize, Unicode - UTF-8 or UTF-16
SQL Server	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 4000, Unicode - UCS-2
IBM DB2	GRAPHIC(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 127, double-byte
MySQL	NCHAR(n), 0 ⇐ n ⇐ 255, Unicode - UTF-8 and TEXT or VARCHAR(n), if n > 255
PostgreSQL	CHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 1G
Sybase ASE	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ pagesize (2K, 4K, 8K or 16K); UNICHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ pagesize, Unicode
Sybase ASA	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 8191, Unicode - UTF-8
Informix DS	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32767, database character set
Teradata	CHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 64000/charsize
HP Neoview	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 4036, Unicode - UCS-2 or ISO88591 (Latin1)
Ingres	NCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 16000, Unicode - UTF-8

Data Types in Other Databases

Oracle

SQL Server

IBM DB2

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Sybase ASE

Sybase ASA

Informix DS

Teradata

HP Neoview

Ingres