Is there any difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC in SQL Server?

Question

Is there any difference between DECIMAL and NUMERIC data types in SQL Server?

When should I use DECIMAL and when NUMERIC?

Answer 1

This is what then SQL2003 standard (§6.1 Data Types) says about the two:

  ::=
    NUMERIC [   [   ]  ]
  | DECIMAL [   [   ]  ]
  | DEC [   [   ]  ]
  | SMALLINT
  | INTEGER
  | INT
  | BIGINT

 ...

21) NUMERIC specifies the data type
    exact numeric, with the decimal
    precision and scale specified by the
     and .

22) DECIMAL specifies the data type
    exact numeric, with the decimal scale
    specified by the  and the
    implementation-defined decimal
    precision equal to or greater than the
    value of the specified .