The SQL type system is used by the language compiler to determine the compile-time type of an expression and by the language execution system to determine the runtime type of an expression, which can be a subtype or implementation of the compile-time type.

Each type has associated with it values of that type. In addition, values in the database or resulting from expressions can be NULL, which means the value is missing or unknown. Although there are some places where the keyword NULL can be explicitly used, it is not in itself a value, because it needs to have a type associated with it.

The syntax presented in this section is the syntax you use when specifying a column's data type in a CREATE TABLE statement.