Data Types for Greenplum

The following table lists the data type support for a Greenplum database.

The BINARY, NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and TINYINT data types are not supported for data type definition.

For data source specific information about Greenplum data types, see the Greenplum database documentation.

Data Types for Greenplum
Data Type Definition Keyword1	Greenplum Data Type	Description	Data Type Returned
BIGINT	INT8	Large signed, exact whole number.	BIGINT
CHAR(n)	CHAR(n)	Fixed-length character string.	CHAR(n)
DATE	DATE	Date values.	DATE
DECIMAL\|NUMERIC(p,s)	DECIMAL(p,s)	Signed, fixed-point decimal number.	DECIMAL\|NUMERIC(p,s)
DOUBLE	DOUBLE	Floating-point number.	DOUBLE
FLOAT(p)	FLOAT8(p)	Floating-point number.	FLOAT(p)
INTEGER	INTEGER	Regular signed, exact whole number.	INTEGER
REAL	REAL	Floating-point number.	REAL
SMALLINT	INT8	Small signed, exact whole number.	SMALLINT
TIME(p)	TIME(p)	Time value in hours, minutes, and seconds.	TIME(p)
TIMESTAMP(p)	TIMESTAMP(p)	Date and time value.	TIMESTAMP(p)
VARBINARY(n)	BYTEA	Varying-length binary string.	VARBINARY(n)
VARCHAR(n)	VARCHAR(n)	Varying-length character string.	VARCHAR(n)
1The CT_PRESERVE= connection argument, which controls how data types are mapped, can affect whether a data type can be defined. The values FORCE (default) and FORCE_COL_SIZE do not affect whether a data type can be defined. The values STRICT and SAFE can result in an error if the requested data type is not native to the data source, or the specified precision or scale is not within the data source range.