GetTypeInfo

Question

We are doing some work around database independence, and as part of this we use meta-data via JDBC to support this.
Initially however, as part of our investigation to see what types are supported in Oracle, we used the java.sql.DatabaseMetaData.getTypeInfo method. We checked the information returned from this.
No entry was returned for JDBC type 3, i.e. java.sql.Types.DECIMAL (we can tell this since Column 2 of the resultset gives the numeric JDBC type).
However when we analyse some existing database tables using the java.sql.DatabaseMetaData.getColumns() method, we find that some columns are of type 3, i.e. DECIMAL.
Is there a bug in the getTypeInfo method ? Is the DECIMAL type supported?
We are using the 8.1.6 driver.

Answer 1

The database supports the type DECIMAL as a synonym for the local type NUMBER(38).
This would have the same behavior as the type reported for BIGINT (code -5).
I do not know whether DECIMAL is not reported because it would be outside of the JDBC spec for typecode 3, or if this is simply an oversight. I'd rather defer to our JDBC developers on this.