"Krissy" <kh*********@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...
When I create a DTS to export a text file from a table, if I click on
the Define Columns button and then Populate from source, then execute,
it changes one of the types to not quotable and the size to 19, which
in turn is changing the file width. The field that it is changing has
a numeric data type and the remainder of the fields are text (all
varying sizes). Is it doing this because it is numeric or is there
some other explaination? And is there anyway to stop it from
happening?
If the data type is numeric with no precision and scale, then by default it
will be numeric(18,0). That means the maximum length of a value would be 18
digits, plus one character for a sign, giving 19, so making the output
column 19 characters wide means that all possible data values will fit. If
you create another column as numeric(10,5) or whatever, then you'll see that
DTS gives it a different size (12 in the case of numeric(10,5) - 10 digits,
1 decimal point, 1 sign). See "decimal and numeric" in Books Online for more
details.
I'm not sure why you want to stop this happening - perhaps if you can
explain why this behaviour is a problem, someone may be able to suggest a
workaround.
Simon
