TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data type   Stores a point in time with a time zone offset. See TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data type.

The alias DATETIMEOFFSET is also supported. See DATETIMEOFFSET data type.

CHAR, NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and VARCHAR data types support 32767 character length   The NCHAR and NVARCHAR data types can now be declared up to 32767 characters. The CHAR and VARCHAR data types with character-length semantics can now be declared up to 32767 characters. If the described byte length in the client character set for the NCHAR, NVARCHAR, CHAR, or VARCHAR data types with character length semantics would be more than 32767, then these types are described as the LONG NVARCHAR or LONG VARCHAR data type. The described byte length for CHAR and VARCHAR data types with byte length semantics now accounts for the maximum possible character set expansion when converting values to the client character set. If the resulting length including the maximum possible expansion is greater than 32767, the type is described as LONG VARCHAR. There is no expansion if the client is using a single byte character set, or the client character set and the database character set encoding are the same. See:

• CHAR data type
• NCHAR data type
• NVARCHAR data type
• VARCHAR data type

Data types for spatial data   Several new data types have been added to support spatial data. See Accessing and manipulating spatial data.