Difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC

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What's the difference between the SQL datatype NUMERIC and DECIMAL ? If databases treat these differently, I'd like to know how for at least:

  • SQL Server
  • Oracle
  • Db/2
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL

Furthermore, are there any differences in how database drivers interpret these types?

numeric decimal sql types
4 Answers

They are actually equivalent, but they are independent types, and not technically synonyms, like ROWVERSION and TIMESTAMP - though they may have been referred to as synonyms in the documentation at one time. That is a slightly different meaning of synonym (e.g. they are indistinguishable except in name, not one is an alias for the other). Ironic, right?

What I interpret from the wording in MSDN is actually: These types are identical, they just have different names.

Other than the type_id values, everything here is identical:

SELECT * FROM sys.types WHERE name IN (N'numeric', N'decimal');

I have absolutely no knowledge of any behavioral differences between the two, and going back to SQL Server 6.5, have always treated them as 100% interchangeable.

for DECIMAL(18,2) and NUMERIC(18,2)? Assigning one to the other is technically a "conversion"?

Only if you do so explicitly. You can prove this easily by creating a table and then inspecting the query plan for queries that perform explicit or - you might expect - implicit conversions. Here's a simple table:

    CREATE TABLE [dbo].[NumDec]
(
    [num] [numeric](18, 0) NULL,
    [dec] [decimal](18, 0) NULL
);

Now run these queries and capture the plan:

DECLARE @num NUMERIC(18,0);
DECLARE @dec DECIMAL(18,0);

    SELECT 
      CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,0), [num]), -- conversion
      CONVERT(NUMERIC(18,0), [dec])  -- conversion
    FROM dbo.NumDec
    UNION ALL SELECT [num],[dec] 
      FROM dbo.NumDec WHERE [num] = @dec  -- no conversion
    UNION ALL SELECT [num],[dec] 
      FROM dbo.NumDec WHERE [dec] = @num; -- no conversion

we have explicit conversions where we asked for them, but no explicit conversions where we might have expected them. Seems the optimizer is treating them as interchangeable, too.

Personally, I prefer to use the term DECIMAL just because it's much more accurate and descriptive. BIT is "numeric" too.

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