Numeric Data Types

Question

What are the numeric data types in Oracle? I created the following table:
CREATE TABLE CONTRACT (
CONTRACT_ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
QUOTE_ID LONG,
BOOK_RATE NUMBER,
IBTSS_CONTRACT_NUM VARCHAR2(20)
But in the Object Browser, the data type of CONTRACT_ID becomes NUMBER which can accept numbers such as 123.25. This is not my intention. I thought LONG is not an acceptable data type but it actually works and the data type of QUOTE_ID shown in the Object Browser is correctly LONG. However, both LONG and INTEGER behave like NUMBER because I can insert values such as 123.56 into columns CONTRACT_ID and QUOTE_ID.
So my questions are
1. What are the supported numeric data types in Oracle?
2. Are we supposed to use INTEGER or LONG at all since they do not behave as expected? Are we supposed to always use NUMBER(n) instead?
Thanks.
Edited by: user10896541 on Apr 23, 2009 2:43 PM

Answer 1

LONG in Oracle is not an integer data type. LONG is a depricated data type that was designed to store text more than 4k in length. Oracle has been asking folks to stop using LONG and use CLOB (or BLOB for binary data) since 8.1.5.
INTEGER maps to NUMBER(38) which does not allow decimal values. You might be confused because Oracle truncates values if you insert them into a column that has less precision than the column allows
SQL> create table x (
  2    col1 integer
  3  );
Table created.
SQL> desc x;
Name                                      Null?    Type
COL1                                               NUMBER(38)
SQL> insert into x values( 1 );
1 row created.
SQL> insert into x values( 1.25 );
1 row created.
SQL> select * from x;
      COL1
         1
         1
SQL>Justin