What should be the best way to store a percent value in SQL-Server?

Question

I want to store a value that represents a percent in SQL server, what data type should be the prefered one?

Answer 1

I agree, DECIMAL is where you should store this type of number. But to make the decision easier, store it as a percentage of 1, not as a percentage of 100. That way you can store exactly the number of decimal places you need regardless of the "whole" number. So if you want 6 decimal places, use DECIMAL(9, 8) and for 23.3436435%, you store 0.23346435. Changing it to 23.346435% is a display problem, not a storage problem, and most presentation languages / report writers etc. are capable of changing the display for you.