SQL data types

InfluxDB Cloud Serverless uses the Apache Arrow DataFusion implementation of SQL. Data types define the type of values that can be stored in table columns. In InfluxDB’s SQL implementation, a measurement is structured as a table, and tags, fields and timestamps are exposed as columns.

SQL and Arrow data types

In SQL, each column, expression, and parameter has a data type. A data type is an attribute that specifies the type of data that the object can hold. DataFusion uses the Arrow type system for query execution. All SQL types are mapped to Arrow data types.

Both SQL and Arrow data types play an important role in how data is operated on during query execution and returned in query results.

SELECT
  '99'::BIGINT,
  '2019-09-18T00:00:00Z'::timestamp

• String types
• Numeric types
  • Integers
  • Unsigned integers
  • Floats
• Date and time data types
  • Timestamp
  • Interval
• Boolean types
• Unsupported SQL types
• Data types compatible with parameters

String types

Example string literals

'abcdefghijk'
'time'
'h2o_temperature'

Numeric types

The following numeric types are supported:

Integers

InfluxDB SQL supports the 64-bit signed integers:

Minimum signed integer: -9223372036854775808 Maximum signed integer: 9223372036854775807

Example integer literals

234
-446
5

Unsigned integers

InfluxDB SQL supports the 64-bit unsigned integers:

Minimum unsigned integer: 0 Maximum unsigned integer: 18446744073709551615

Example unsigned integer literals

Unsigned integer literals are comprised of an integer cast to the BIGINT UNSIGNED type:

234::BIGINT UNSIGNED
458374893::BIGINT UNSIGNED
5::BIGINT UNSIGNED

Floats

InfluxDB SQL supports the 64-bit double floating point values. Floats can be a decimal point, decimal integer, or decimal fraction.

Example float literals

23.8
-446.89
5.00
0.033

Date and time data types

InfluxDB SQL supports the following DATE/TIME data types:

Timestamp

A time type is a single point in time using nanosecond precision.

The following date and time formats are supported:

YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00.000Z
YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00.000-00:00
YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00.000-00:00
YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00Z
YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00.000
YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00

Example timestamp literals

'2023-01-02T03:04:06.000Z'
'2023-01-02T03:04:06.000-00:00'
'2023-01-02 03:04:06.000-00:00'
'2023-01-02T03:04:06Z'
'2023-01-02 03:04:06.000'
'2023-01-02 03:04:06'

Interval

The INTERVAL data type can be used with the following precision:

• nanosecond
• microsecond
• millisecond
• second
• minute
• hour
• day
• week
• month
• year
• century

Example interval literals

INTERVAL '10 minutes'
INTERVAL '1 year'
INTERVAL '2 days 1 hour 31 minutes'

Boolean types

Booleans store TRUE or FALSE values.

Example boolean literals

true
TRUE
false
FALSE

Unsupported SQL types

The following SQL types are not currently supported:

• UUID
• BLOB
• CLOB
• BINARY
• VARBINARY
• REGCLASS
• NVARCHAR
• CUSTOM
• ARRAY
• ENUM
• SET
• DATETIME
• BYTEA

Data types compatible with parameters

For information about data types that can be substituted by parameters, see how to use parameterized queries with SQL.