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Analyzing Data › Defining Entity Types, Relationships, and Attributes › Defining Entity Type Attributes › Attribute Length

Attribute Length

The length of an attribute indicates the maximum number of characters or digits for each of its values. Considered to be a subset of the domain of an attribute, because the number of characters or digits restricts the possible set of values for the attribute.

Using CA Gen, the maximum length of an attribute varies based on the primitive domain to which it belongs.

The following table lists the possible lengths of attributes that belong to the primitive domains.

Domain

Possible Attribute Length

Text (fixed)

1 - 255

Text (varying)

1 - 4094

DBCS Text (fixed)

1 - 127

DBCS Text (varying)

1 – 2047

Mixed Text (fixed)

1 - 255

Mixed Text (varying)

1 – 4094

Number

1 - 18

Date

8

Time

6

Timestamp

20

BLOB

1 byte to 2 gigabytes

Note: No range of lengths is available for attributes belonging to the domains Date, Time, and Timestamp because the formats of these attributes are fixed.

Each Date includes four digits for the year, two for the month, and two for the day.

Each Time includes two digits for the hour, two for the minute, and two for the second.

CA Gen automatically sets the length property of Date and Time attributes and does not allow them to be modified. Specify the length of an attribute before recording its permitted values.