Excuse me, Laurent – I didn’t mean to insult you, and I publicly apologize to you now, if any offense was taken.   In part, my response was directed to “the peanut gallery” of others who might one day read this thread.   (Probably we have all experienced the “off by a penny” issue, and how can we explain to people that the computer’s total is actually more accurate?   I’ve long ago given-up on that ...)   By pointing out something that you already knew (of course), I did not mean in any way to suggest that you didn’t.   Again, I own my words, and I apologize sincerely.

Don't worry, sundialsvc4, I certainly did not feel insulted or offended. The questions you asked are legitimate and you don't need to apologize. I only wanted to point out that if there is one technical subject that I really know well, inside out, it is this database and the application around it (including the different (at least 3, in some cases 4) levels of abstraction between the database level data types and the lowest, architecture dependent, level data types). So that I know that what I said about the data types used on this application is really accurate. But again, I certainly did not feel offended, no problem for me.