• Table of contents
• :string
• :text
• :integer
• :float
• :decimal
• :boolean
• :binary
• :date
• :time
• :datetime
• :timestamp
  • Resources

There are many different types of data types used for database tables with Ruby on Rails, each different database backend having their own data types. This is just a simple list of generic data types used with ActiveRecord with Ruby on Rails.

:string¶

• Limited to 255 characters (depending on DBMS)
• Use for short text fields (names, emails, etc)

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:text¶

• Unlimited length (depending on DBMS)
• Use for comments, blog posts, etc. General rule of thumb: if it's captured via textarea, use Text. For input using textfields, use string.

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:integer¶

• Whole numbers

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:float¶

• Decimal numbers stored with floating point precision
• Precision is fixed, which can be problematic for some calculations; generally no good for math operations due to inaccurate rounding.

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:decimal¶

• Decimal numbers stored with precision that varies according to what is needed by your calculations; use these for math that needs to be accurate
• See this post for examples and an in-depth explanation on the differences between floats and decimals.

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:boolean¶

• Use to store true/false attributes (i.e. things that only have two states, like on/off)

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:binary¶

• Use to store images, movies, and other files in their original, raw format in chunks of data called blobs

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:date¶

• Stores only a date (year, month, day)

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:time¶

• Stores only a time (hours, minutes, seconds)

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:datetime¶

• Stores both date and time

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:timestamp¶

• Stores both date and time

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Resources¶

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11889048/is-there-documentation-for-the-rails-column-types
• http://blog.ifyouseewendy.com/blog/2015/08/10/data-types-in-rails/
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17918117/rails-4-list-of-available-datatypes