DECIMAL datatype

Can someone help me better understand the DECIMAL datatype? I've
defined a column as colname DEC(9,2). I know that precision is the
total number of digits, and scale is the number of digits to the right
of the decimal point. Yet 'sp_help tablename' indicates that colname
has a 'length' of 5. What does this 'length' refer to? Thanks.Storage bytes
Precision Storage bytes
1 - 9 ........5
10-19 .......9
20-28....... 13
29-38 .........17
Denis the SQL Menace
http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/|||i believe it's referred to byte.
"Rick Charnes" wrote:

> Can someone help me better understand the DECIMAL datatype? I've
> defined a column as colname DEC(9,2). I know that precision is the
> total number of digits, and scale is the number of digits to the right
> of the decimal point. Yet 'sp_help tablename' indicates that colname
> has a 'length' of 5. What does this 'length' refer to? Thanks.
>