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DATE/TIME Data Types

SQL Server 2008 introduces new date and time data types. The new data types enable applications to have separate date and time types, larger year ranges for date value, larger fractional seconds precision for time value, time-zone offset aware datetime type that containing date, time and time zone offset portion, user defined option on fractional seconds precision of time related types and datetime2 and datetimeoffset provide standards conformant semantics. Along with the T-SQL support on the new types, both native (ODBC, OLEDB) and managed (SqlClient) providers also provide the full support through the client driver APIs.

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Originally posted by Peso
SQL Server 2008 introduces new date and time data types. The new data types enable applications to have separate date and time types, larger year ranges for date value, larger fractional seconds precision for time value, time-zone offset aware datetime type that containing date, time and time zone offset portion, user defined option on fractional seconds precision of time related types and datetime2 and datetimeoffset provide standards conformant semantics. Along with the T-SQL support on the new types, both native (ODBC, OLEDB) and managed (SqlClient) providers also provide the full support through the client driver APIs.

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Key Properties of hierarchyid

A value of the hierarchyid data type represents a position in a tree hierarchy. Values for hierarchyid have the following properties:

Extremely compact

The average number of bits that are required to represent a node in a tree with n nodes depends on the average fanout (the average number of children of a node). For small fanouts, (0-7) the size is about 6*logAn bits, where A is the average fanout. A node in an organizational hierarchy of 100,000 people with an average fanout of 6 levels takes about 38 bits. This is rounded up to 40 bits, or 5 bytes, for storage.


Comparison is in depth-first order

Given two hierarchyid values a and b, a<b means a comes before b in a depth-first traversal of the tree. Indexes on hierarchyid data types are in depth-first order, and nodes close to each other in a depth-first traversal are stored near each other. For example, the children of a record are stored adjacent to that record. For more information, see Using hierarchyid Data Types (Database Engine).


Support for arbitrary insertions and deletions

By using the GetDescendant method, it is always possible to generate a sibling to the right of any given node, to the left of any given node, or between any two siblings. The comparison property is maintained when an arbitrary number of nodes is inserted or deleted from the hierarchy. Most insertions and deletions preserve the compactness property. However, insertions between two nodes will produce hierarchyid values with a slightly less compact representation.

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Originally posted by karuna

Does this mean that 2008 is capable of handling TimeZones by itself ?

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Books Online

Note:
Use the time, date, datetime2 and datetimeoffset data types for new work. These types align with the SQL Standard. They are more portable. time, datetime2 and datetimeoffset provide more seconds precision. datetimeoffset provides time zone support for globally deployed applications.

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