I am currently moving a product from SQL Server to Oracle. I am semi-familiar with SQL Server and know nothing about Oracle, so I apologize if the mere presence of this question offends anyone.
Inferring from this page, http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12151_01/doc.150/e12156/ss_oracle_compared.htm, it would seem that the data type conversion from SQL Server to Oracle should be:
REAL = FLOAT(24) -> FLOAT(63)
FLOAT(p) -> FLOAT(p)
TIMESTAMP -> NUMBER
NVARCHAR(n) -> VARCHAR(n*2)
NCHAR(n) -> CHAR(n*2)
Here are my questions regarding them:
For FLOAT, considering that FLOAT(p) -> FLOAT(p), wouldn’t it also mean that FLOAT -> FLOAT(24)?
For TIMESTAMP, since Oracle also has its own version of it, wouldn’t it be better that TIMESTAMP -> TIMESTAMP?
Finally, for NVARCHAR(n) and NCHAR(n), I thought the issue would be regarding Unicode. Then, again, since Oracle provides its own version of both, wouldn’t it make more sense that NVARCHAR(n) -> NVARCHAR(n) and NCHAR(n) -> NCHAR(n)?
It would be much appreciated if someone were to elaborate on the previous 3 matters.
Thanks in advance.
It appears that Oracle’s CHAR and VARCHAR2 (always use VARCHAR2 instead of VARCHAR) already support Unicode – the document you’ve linked to advises converting to those from the SQL Server NCHAR and NVARCHAR datatypes.
The SQL Server TIMESTAMP isn’t actually a timestamp at all – it’s some kind of identifier based on the time that’s just used to indicate that a row has changed – it can’t be converted back into any kind of DATETIME (at least in a way that I know about).
For FLOAT, using 126 bytes would be enormous – since the developer tools automatically map SQL Server’s FLOAT to Oracle’s FLOAT(53), why not use that amount?