Data Types and Conversions for Google BigQuery

Overview

Every column in a table has a name and a data type. The data type tells Google BigQuery how much physical storage to set aside for the column and the form in which the data is stored.

For information about Google BigQuery data types and to determine which data types are available for your version of Google BigQuery, see your Google BigQuery documentation.

Supported Google BigQuery Data Types

Here are the data types that the Google BigQuery engine supports.

Character data:

BYTES

STRING

JSON

Numeric data:

BIGINT

FLOAT64

BIGNUMERIC

NUMERIC

BOOL

Note: When performing calculations on numeric values and when storing numeric values, SAS maintains up to 15 digits of precision. When you read values that contain more than 15 decimal digits of precision from a database into SAS, the values that SAS reads are rounded to meet this condition. When you use a large numeric value in a WHERE clause, this rounding can cause unexpected results, such as not selecting desired rows. For noncomputational purposes, such as storing ID values or credit card numbers, you can read the data in as character data. For more information, see Your Options When Choosing Your Needed Degree of Precision.

Date, time, and timestamp data:

DATE

TIME

DATETIME

TIMESTAMP

Note: Be aware that columns of these data types can contain data values that are out of range for SAS.

Other data types:

ARRAY

RECORD (also referred to as STRUCT)

GEOGRAPHY

LIBNAME Statement Data Conversions

This table shows the default formats that SAS/ACCESS Interface to Google BigQuery assigns to SAS variables when using the LIBNAME statement to read from a Google BigQuery table. These default formats are based on Google BigQuery column attributes.

LIBNAME Statement: Default SAS Formats for Google BigQuery Data Types
Google BigQuery Data Type	SAS Data Type	Default SAS Format
Character Data
BYTES	CHAR	$HEXw.
JSON	CHAR	$w.
STRING	CHAR	$w.
Numeric Data
BIGINT	NUMERIC	20.
BIGNUMERIC	NUMERIC	w.d
BOOL	NUMERIC	1.
FLOAT64	NUMERIC	none w.d
NUMERIC	NUMERIC	none w.d
Date and Time Data
DATE	NUMERIC	DATE9.
DATETIME	NUMERIC	DATETIME25.6
TIME	NUMERIC	TIME15.6
TIMESTAMP	NUMERIC	DATETIME25.6
Other Data
ARRAY	VARCHAR	$w.2
GEOGRAPHY	VARCHAR	$w.2
RECORD1	VARCHAR	$w.2
1 Also referred to as a STRUCT in Google BigQuery.
2 The default length is based on MAX_CHAR_LEN.

This table shows the default Google BigQuery data types that SAS/ACCESS assigns to SAS variable formats during output operations when you use the LIBNAME statement.

LIBNAME Statement: Default Google BigQuery Data Types for SAS Variable Formats
SAS Variable Format	Google BigQuery Data Type
w.d	DOUBLE
w.	BIGINT
$w.	VARCHAR
datetime formats	DATETIME TIMESTAMP
date formats	DATE
time formats	TIME

Working with Binary Data for Google BigQuery

SAS/ACCESS Interface to Google BigQuery supports the use of BINARY data. When binary data is displayed, the value is typically padded with spaces (0x20) at the end of a value. To control the length of values that are displayed when using PROC PRINT, PROC SQL, or other procedures, specify a value for the MAX_BINARY_LEN= LIBNAME option. Otherwise, these procedures might truncate the data with different lengths.

Working with ARRAY Data

When you load ARRAY data into SAS, the data is loaded as VARCHAR data. The default length of the data is based on MAX_CHAR_LEN.

To work with ARRAY data as the data type that is assigned in Google BigQuery, use PROC SQL to pass SQL queries down to the database.

Last updated: February 3, 2026