Data Types

XINA has a fixed set of data types which apply to attributes and fields. They are intended to provide consistent behavior across MySQL, Java, and JavaScript data types.

Numeric Types

Type	Java	MySQL	JavaScript	Notes
int(1)	byte	tinyint	number	integer, -287 to 287-1
int(2)	short	smallint	number	integer, -21615 to 21615-1
int(4)	int	int	number	integer, -23231 to 23231-1
int(8)	long	bigint	number	integer, -26463 to 26463-1 ⚠️
float(4)	float	float	number	IEEE 754 4 byte floating point
float(8)	double	double	number	IEEE 754 8 byte floating point
boolean	boolean	tinyint	boolean	MySQL treats 0 as false, non-zero as true

⚠️ JavaScript number is 8 byte float, so only -2⁵³ to 2⁵³-1 is stored with exact precision

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Character Types

Character data types offer two encoding options:

• UTF-8 - default encoding, variable length, 1 to 4 bytes per character
• ASCII - subset of UTF-8, fixed length, 1 byte per character

Two SQL types:

• char(n) - data stored in the table, fastest search and index, uses fixed amount of space per row (n * max_bytes_per_character)
• varchar(n) - data stored in the table, fast search and index, uses variable amount of space per row (up to n * max_bytes_per_character)
• text - data stored outside the table, slower search and index, uses only as much space as needed

Two general types:

• string - text is normalized before insertion
  • leading and trailing whitespace is trimmed
  • all internal whitespace is reduced to a single space character
• text - text is inserted as provided

Note, all string operations are case-insensitive by default. This can be overridden with the collate expression by specifying a binary collation.

Type	Java	MySQL	JavaScript	Notes
utf8string(n)	string	char(n)	string	n up to 128, uses n*4 bytes, normalized
utf8vstring(n)	string	varchar(n)	string	n up to 128, uses up to n*4 bytes, normalized
utf8string	string	mediumtext	string	up to 224 bytes, normalized
utf8text	string	mediumtext	string	up to 224 bytes, not normalized
asciistring(n)	string	char(n)	string	n up to 256, uses n bytes, normalized
asciivstring(n)	string	varchar(n)	string	n up to 256, uses up to n bytes, normalized
asciistring	string	mediumtext	string	up to 224 bytes, normalized
asciitext	string	mediumtext	string	up to 224 bytes, not normalized

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Temporal Types

Temporal data types store time data. There are two categories of temporal types:

• instants - identify specific moment in time, independent of time zone
  • stored numerically in the database in milliseconds
  • datetime and date use Unix epoch
  • datetime and date comparable in database
  • date + time = datetime
  • typically displayed in local time zone in front-end applications
• timestamps - identify specific formatted time without time zone consideration (thus local)
  • stored as ISO 8601 formatted string in database
  • localdate and localdatetime comparable in database
  • CONCAT(localdate, 'T', localtime) = localdatetime

Type	Java	MySQL	JavaScript	Notes
datetime	DateTime	bigint	date	instant with millisecond precision, as Unix time
date	XDate	bigint	date	instant at start of date UTC, as Unix time
time	LocalTime	int	number	length of time up to 23:59:59.999, as millisecond count
localdatetime	LocalDateTime	char(24)	string	full timestamp without timezone, stored as string
localdate	LocalDate	char(10)	string	date without timezone, stored as string
localtime	LocalTime	char(12)	string	length of time up to 23:59:59.999, as string

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JSON Types

JSON data types store JSON data directly in the database.

Type	Java	MySQL	JavaScript
json	JsonValue	json	*
jsonarray	JsonArray	json	array
jsonobject	JsonObject	json	object