Is “NUMBER” and “NUMBER(*,0)” the same in Oracle?

Question

In Oracle documentation it is mentioned that

NUMBER (precision, scale)

If a precision is not specified, the column stores values as given. I

Answer 1

The default of scale is not zero, which has no value in it. Hence it can accept any value between -84 to 127. If you limit it to zero then it will not accept any presicion even the value contains the scale value

create table aaaaa
(
sno number(*,0),
sno1 number
);

The user_tab_columns will give you the value of your precision and scale

SQL> select column_name,data_precision,data_scale from user_tab_columns where ta
ble_name = 'AAAAA';

COLUMN_NAME                    DATA_PRECISION DATA_SCALE
------------------------------ -------------- ----------
SNO                                                    0
SNO1

SQL>

Please find the below workings

SQL> select * from aaaaa;

no rows selected

SQL> insert into aaaaa values (123.123123,123123.21344);

1 row created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> select * from aaaaa;

       SNO       SNO1
---------- ----------
       123 123123.213

SQL>