Data Types

ArcadeDB supports several data types natively. Below is the complete table.

Type SQL type Description Java type Minimum — Maximum Auto-conversion from/to

Boolean

BOOLEAN

Handles only the values True or False

java.lang.Boolean or boolean

0 — 1

String

Integer

INTEGER

32-bit signed Integers

java.lang.Integer or int

-2,147,483,648 — +2,147,483,647

Any Number, String

Short

SHORT

Small 16-bit signed integers

java.lang.Short or short

-32,768 — 32,767

Any Number, String

Long

LONG

Big 64-bit signed integers

java.lang.Long or long

-263 — +263-1

Any Number, String

Float

FLOAT

Decimal numbers

java.lang.Float or float

2-149 — (2-2-23)*2127

Any Number, String

Double

DOUBLE

Decimal numbers with high precision

java.lang.Double or double

2-1074 — (2-2-52)*21023

Any Number, String

Datetime

DATETIME

Any date with the precision up to milliseconds. To know more about it, look at Managing Dates

java.util.Date

Date, Long, String

String

STRING

Any string as alphanumeric sequence of chars

java.lang.String

Binary

BINARY

Can contain any value as byte array

byte[]

0 — 2,147,483,647

String

Embedded

EMBEDDED

The Record is contained inside the owner. The contained record has no RID

EmbeddedDocument

EmbeddedDocument

Embedded list

LIST

The Records are contained inside the owner. The contained records have no RIDs and are reachable only by navigating the owner record

List<EmbeddedDocument>

0 — 41,000,000 items

String

Embedded map

MAP

The Records are contained inside the owner as values of the entries, while the keys can only be Strings. The contained records have no RIDs and are reachable only by navigating the owner Record

Map<String, EmbeddedDocument>

0 — 41,000,000 items

Collection<? extends EmbeddedDocument<?>>, String

Link

LINK

Link to another Record. It’s a common one-to-one relationship

RID, <? extends Record>

1:-1 — 32767:263-1

String

Byte

BYTE

Single byte. Useful to store small 8-bit signed integers

java.lang.Byte or byte

-128 — +127

Any Number, String

Decimal

DECIMAL

Decimal numbers without rounding

java.math.BigDecimal

Any Number, String

Vector

ARRAY_OF_?

Vector of scalar types: SHORTS, INTEGERS, LONGS, FLOATS, DOUBLES. A full type is for example then ARRAY_OF_FLOATS

Tuples
Embedded types, like EMBEDDED (document), (embedded) LIST, and (embedded) MAP are non-scalar types.
A vector type can be either LIST OF SHORT|INTEGER|LONG|FLOAT|DOUBLE or ARRAY_OF_SHORTS|INTEGERS|LONGS|FLOATS|DOUBLES.
An equality lookup (=, <>, IN) on a FLOAT or DOUBLE property converts the operand to the property’s type, with or without an index. A FLOAT holding 0.1 is therefore found by the double 0.10000000149011612 (what you get by reading the FLOAT back as a double), and a DOUBLE is found by the BigDecimal that rounds to it. Ordering (<, >) is unchanged and reads a FLOAT by its decimal value, so a value can satisfy both = and < against the same operand.
A write to a declared property is refused, with an error naming the property, when the value cannot be held by the type: a boolean, list, map or date for a numeric property, an empty string for a numeric property, a number outside the 64-bit range for a LONG (or a finite number that overflows a FLOAT or DOUBLE), an empty or digit-only string for a DATETIME, a string for a BINARY, a non-link value for a LINK, or an array for a STRING. A STRING holding a lone UTF-16 surrogate (for example "\uD83D", which cannot be encoded as UTF-8) is refused with a validation error instead of being stored as ? (since v26.10.1). Such a value is never stored as NULL, 0 or as a value of another type, with or without an index. A number written to a BOOLEAN is false only when it is 0.
A java.math.BigInteger written to a property with no declared type keeps its exact value: inside the 64-bit range it is stored as an INTEGER or LONG, outside it as a DECIMAL (it reads back as a BigDecimal with the same digits), never as a rounded DOUBLE.
Equality lookups give the same answer with or without an index. Two DECIMAL values are equal when they have the same numeric value, whatever their scale (19.9 equals 19.90). A DATETIME property is matched by a java.time.Instant, ZonedDateTime or OffsetDateTime of the same moment. A BOOLEAN property is matched by true/false as a string or by a number (0 is false, anything else is true); an operand that does not read as a boolean matches nothing.
When serializing floating point types FLOAT and DOUBLE to JSON, NaN, Inf, and -Inf are cast to null, wherever they appear, including inside lists and arrays (before v26.10.1 a non-finite value inside a list was written as 0) (since v26.10.1).

Embedded MAP vs EMBEDDED Document

A MAP type and an EMBEDDED type are both a hierarchy of key-value pairs (think JSON); but the EMBEDDED type needs to know which document type it is an instance of. Hence, to embed a document, a document type needs to be declared beforehand, such that upon embedding validity of constrains (if existing) can be checked.

The embedded type is taken from either of two places:

  • a @type property in the value’s top-level, naming an existing document type, or

  • the property’s own declared embedded type, when the property was created with one (CREATE PROPERTY Person.address EMBEDDED OF Address).

If the property declares an embedded type, a plain map is enough and you do not have to repeat @type:

person.set("address", Map.of("city", "Rome"));

A @type in the value still takes precedence where present, which is how you store a subtype of the declared one. If neither is available, the value is rejected.