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Posted by Erland Sommarskog on 07/19/07 15:32
(anilkmakhija@gmail.com) writes:
> I need to store 256 bit hash (SHA-2 alogrithmn) in one of the table's
> primary key. I would prefer to use numeric data type rather varchar
> etc.
>
> * Decimal datatype range is -10^38 +1 to 10^38 -1. I can split my 256
> bit hash into two decimal(38, 0) type columns as composite key
> * I can store the hash as varbinary. I never used it and don't have
> much understanding in terms of query writing complexities and dealing
> it through ADO (data type etc.)
>
> It would be heavy OLTP type of systems with hash based primary key
> used in joins for data retrieval as well.
I don't see what purpose the kludge with decimal should serve. Would you
not be left with a lot of code that converts forth and back?
Isn't the hash always always 256 bits? In such case would not binary(32)
be a better choice than varbinary.
Using a binary as key should be relatively straight forward. Of course,
there is some cost due to the size of the key, but that would not be any
better with decimal.
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx
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