Data types in the binary category include:
- cursor variables store references to cursors used for database operations. A table may not contain a cursor variable.
- sql_variant variables store up to 8,000 bytes of data from any SQL Server data type other than varchar(max), nvarchar(max), text, image, sql_variant, varbinary(max), xml, ntext and timestamp.
- table variables store temporary tables used during database operations. SQL Server database tables may not contain variables of type table.
- xml variables store XML formatted data. They may store a maximum of 2 gigabytes.
- uniqueidentifier variables store 16-bit globally unique identifiers. They may be instantiated with a new GUID using the NEWID function.
