Difference between numeric, float and decimal in SQL Server

Question

What are the differences between numeric, float and decimal datatypes and which should be used in which situations?

For any ki

Answer 1

They Differ in Data Type Precedence

Decimal and Numeric are the same functionally but there is still data type precedence, which can be crucial in some cases.

SELECT SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(CAST(1 AS NUMERIC) + CAST(1 AS DECIMAL),'basetype')

The resulting data type is numeric because it takes data type precedence.

Exhaustive list of data types by precedence:

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