What does the number inside the parenthesis of INTEGER denote?

Question

What does :

value_1 INTEGER(5);

mean ?

I understand that value_1 is an integer but what does 5 mean in the declaration ?

Answer 1

In Oracle this means maximal number of decimal digits allowable for number to have.
So, variable of type number(5) can contain 99999, but not 100000.
In fact, that subtype limits you to values -99999 to 99999.

Oracle docs covering number subtypes, of which one is integer.

Oracle docs covering the number type.