Documentation

SQL data types

InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated 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.

DataFusion uses the Arrow type system for query execution. Data types stored in InfluxDB’s storage engine are mapped to SQL data types at query time.

When performing casting operations, cast to the name of the data type, not the actual data type. Names and indentifiers in SQL are case-insensitive by default. For example:

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

String types

NameData typeDescription
STRINGUTF8Character string, variable-length
CHARUTF8Character string, fixed-length
VARCHARUTF8Character string, variable-length
TEXTUTF8Variable unlimited length
Example string literals
'abcdefghijk'
'time'
'h2o_temperature'

Numeric types

The following numeric types are supported:

NameData typeDescription
BIGINTINT6464-bit signed integer
BIGINT UNSIGNEDUINT6464-bit unsigned integer
DOUBLEFLOAT6464-bit floating-point number

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:

NameData typeDescription
TIMESTAMPTIMESTAMPTimeUnit::Nanosecond, None
INTERVALINTERVALInterval(IntervalUnit::YearMonth) or Interval(IntervalUnit::DayTime)

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.

NameData typeDescription
BOOLEANBOOLEANTrue 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

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