timestaps in SQL

[AtomicWedgie]

Hi,

i have different tables in my database with a field where a unique "timestamp" value is held. The value looks like this:

0x0000000008810298

Is this value generated by the database and is it possible to convert this to something readable or what does this value exactly mean?

Thanks in advance,

Atomic Wedgie

 

[r937]

sounds like you might want to use datetime instead


quote from Books OnLine:

timestamp is a data type that exposes automatically generated binary numbers, which are guaranteed to be unique within a database. timestamp is used typically as a mechanism for version-stamping table rows. The storage size is 8 bytes.

The Transact-SQL timestamp data type is not the same as the timestamp data type defined in the SQL-92 standard. The SQL-92 timestamp data type is equivalent to the Transact-SQL datetime data type.

A future release of Microsoft® SQL Server™ may modify the behavior of the Transact-SQL timestamp data type to align it with the behavior defined in the standard. At that time, the current timestamp data type will be replaced with a rowversion data type.



rudy

http://r937.com/

SQL Consulting