This page has 0 threads | Add post

Blogs

Finding our blogs useful? Please consider helping us to share more!

A list of one owl's 5 favourite system stored procedures in SQL! Part three of a six-part series of blogs
Everyone has a favourite system stored procedure (you do, don't you?). But five? That's the subject of this blog, anyway. My 5 favourite SQL system stored procedures! Listing the contents of a procedure or function (sp_helptext) Using sp_datatype_info to get the data type of a variable (this blog) Which tables/procedures depend on which? (sp_depends) Listing the columns in a table (sp_columns) Using sp_help to get help on a table, procedure, column, etc

A list of one owl's 5 favourite system stored procedures in SQL!

Part three of a six-part series of blogs

Everyone has a favourite system stored procedure (you do, don't you?). But five? That's the subject of this blog, anyway.

My 5 favourite SQL system stored procedures!
Listing the contents of a procedure or function (sp_helptext)
Using sp_datatype_info to get the data type of a variable (this blog)
Which tables/procedures depend on which? (sp_depends)
Listing the columns in a table (sp_columns)
Using sp_help to get help on a table, procedure, column, etc

Posted by Andy Brown on 03 February 2017

Using sp_datatype_info to get the data type of a variable

Unless you have committed all of the SQL data types to memory, there'll be times when you want to remind yourself of how big an int really is, or what a varchar is and does. Here's how to get an answer! You can either get a full list:

-- show all data types

sp_datatype_info

This gives the following:

There are many more columns and rows than are shown here.

Or you could be more specific:

-- show info on subset of data types

sp_datatype_info -9

This would show you a rather odd subset of data types:

Again, there are more columns than are shown here!

Quite why nvarchar and date belong in the same group, but varchar doesn't, I'm not sure!

Parts of this blog
My 5 favourite SQL system stored procedures! Listing the contents of a procedure or function (sp_helptext) Using sp_datatype_info to get the data type of a variable (this blog) Which tables/procedures depend on which? (sp_depends) Listing the columns in a table (sp_columns) Using sp_help to get help on a table, procedure, column, etc

Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:

This blog has 0 threads

Add a new post

Head office

Kingsmoor House

Railway Street

GLOSSOP

SK13 2AA

London

Landmark Offices

99 Bishopsgate

LONDON

EC2M 3XD

Manchester

Holiday Inn

25 Aytoun Street

MANCHESTER

M1 3AE

Site map

Terms & Conditions

Book any course as classroom, onsite or online training, or as one-to-one consultancy

Free resources

Paid services

Getting help

Where we are

Where you are

Online

Transparent reviews

Delivery of courses

Nicer to work with

Reliable and established

Our training courses

C#

Excel

MySQL

Power Apps

Power Automate

Power BI and DAX

Python

Report Builder

SQL

SQL Server

VBA Macros

Other training resources

Blogs

Exercises

YouTube tutorials

YouTube shorts

Test your skills

Consultancy

Courseware

Self-paced courses

Newsletters

Publications

Our training venues

London

Manchester

Across the UK

At your site

Online

Why we are different

Hundreds of published reviews

Small class sizes

Outstanding courseware

Online classroom

(Almost) no cancellations

Wise Owl trainers only

Genuine integrity

Invoices after training

30+ years of Wise Owl

Our top 100 clients

BLOGS BY TOPIC

BLOGS BY AUTHOR

Using sp_datatype_info to get the data type of a variable

Head office

London

Manchester