When you define a view, its columns are defined through a list of expressions in the underlying SELECT statement. Their data types will be determined implicitly by the expressions.

For example, if the column expression is a column name of a underlying table, the data type of the view column will be the same of the underlying table column.

If the column expression is a function, the data type of the view column will be the function return data type.

If the column expression is an operation, the data type of the view column will be the expression result data type.

The following tutorial exercise shows you some examples of view column data types:

DROP VIEW ggl_links_view;

GO

CREATE VIEW ggl_links_view (ID, DateString, CountUrl) AS

SELECT id, CONVERT(VARCHAR(16), created, 107),

CONVERT(VARCHAR(20),counts)+' - '+url

FROM ggl_links WHERE counts > 1000

GO