The smallest unit of data that can be manipulated in SQL is called a value.
How values are interpreted depends on the
attributes
of
their source, which includes the data type, length, precision, scale,
and CCSID. The sources of values are:
Variables (such as host variables, SQL variables, global
variables, parameter markers and parameters of routines)
The DB2® relational database products support both built-in data types and user-defined data types. This section describes the built-in data types. For a description of distinct types, see User-defined types.
The following figure illustrates the various built-in data types supported by the DB2 for i program.

For information about specifying the data types of columns, see CREATE TABLE.