Is there any difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC in SQL Server

Question

Is there any difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC data types in SQL Server   When should I use DECIMAL and when NUMERIC

User · Accepted Answer

They are the same  Numeric is functionally equivalent to decimal   MSDN  decimal and numeric

User · Answer

To my knowledge there is no difference between NUMERIC and DECIMAL data types   They are synonymous to each other and either one can be used   DECIMAL and NUMERIC data types are numeric data types with fixed precision and scale   Edit   Speaking to a few collegues maybe its has something to do with DECIMAL being the ANSI SQL standard and NUMERIC being one Mircosoft prefers as its more commonly found in programming languages     Maybe

User · Answer

This is what then SQL2003 standard    6 1 Data Types  says about the two     lt exact numeric type gt          NUMERIC    lt left paren gt   lt precision gt     lt comma gt   lt scale gt     lt right paren gt        DECIMAL    lt left paren gt   lt precision gt     lt comma gt   lt scale gt     lt right paren gt        DEC    lt left paren gt   lt precision gt     lt comma gt   lt scale gt     lt right paren gt        SMALLINT     INTEGER     INT     BIGINT        21  NUMERIC specifies the data type     exact numeric  with the decimal     precision and scale specified by the      lt precision gt  and  lt scale gt    22  DECIMAL specifies the data type     exact numeric  with the decimal scale     specified by the  lt scale gt  and the     implementation-defined decimal     precision equal to or greater than the     value of the specified  lt precision gt

User · Answer

They are exactly the same  When you use it be consistent  Use one of them in your database

User · Answer

Joakim Backman s answer is specific  but this may bring additional clarity to it   There is a minor difference  As per SQL For Dummies  8th Edition  2013       The DECIMAL data type is similar to NUMERIC      The difference is   that your implementation may specify a precision greater than what you   specify     if so  the implementation uses the greater precision  If you   do not specify precision or scale  the implementation uses default   values  as it does with the NUMERIC type    It seems that the difference on some implementations of SQL is in data integrity  DECIMAL allows overflow from what is defined based on some system defaults  where as NUMERIC does not

User · Answer

They are synonyms  no difference at all Decimal and Numeric data types are numeric data types with fixed precision and scale   -- Initialize a variable  give it a data type and an initial value  declare  myvar as decimal 18 8  or numeric 18 8 ----- 9 bytes needed  -- Increse that the vaue by 1  set  myvar   123456 7  --Retrieve that value  select  myvar as myVariable

[sql-server] Is there any difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC in SQL Server?

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