====== DDL ======
 
 Type                Storage     Range/Length               Comments
 -----------------   ----------  --------------             -------------------
 NUMBER              16          40 digit floating point
 FLOAT               16          40 digit floating point
 SMALLINT            16          40 digit floating point
 
 NUMBER(a,b)         varies      a digits, b precision
 FLOAT(a,b)          varies      a digits, b precision
 
 DECIMAL             16          40 digit
 
 INTEGER             16          40 digits
 INTEGER(a)          varies      a digits
 
 CHAR(a)             a           a=(1-255)
 VARCHAR(a)          varies      1 - 255
 VARCHAR2(a)         varies      1 - 2000
 
 DATE                8           1/1/4217BC - 12/31/4712AD  precision to minutes
 
 
 LONG                varies      0 - 2 GB                   stored inline, obsolete *
 LONG RAW            varies      0 - 2 GB                   stored inline, obsolete *
 
 LONG VARCHAR        varies      0 - 2 GB                   stored inline, obsolete *
 
 BLOB                varies      0 - 4 GB                   stored separate from table
 CLOB                varies      0 - 4 GB                   stored separate from table
 NCLOB               varies      0 - 4 GB                   stored separate from table
 
 BFILE               ??          ??                         pointer to O/S file
 
 ROWID               8           n/a                        row identifier within block
 
 
 * Long datatypes are discouraged in Oracle 8.  Note that are long and blob
   datatypes are incompatible.
 
 
 ====== PL-SQL data types (differences) ======
 
 Type                Storage     Range/Length    Comments
 -----------------   ----------  --------------  ----------------------------
 NUMERIC
 
 VARCHAR
 VARCHAR2
 
 BLOB                                             must be read in 32k chunks
 CLOB
 NCLOB