what's the size of a date field?

[elain he]

Hi,
I'm trying to figure out the size (in bytes) of a DATE column. Executing the 
three queries below returned me three different values. Is there any way of 
finding the size of a date column in the database?

Thanks.

elain

select * from testing;
DOB
---------
06-OCT-03
desc testing
Name                                                                     
Null?    Type
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------- -------------
DOB                                                                          
     DATE

select avg_row_len from user_tables where table_name='TESTING';
AVG_ROW_LEN
-----------
        11
select data_length from dba_Tab_columns where table_name='TESTING';
DATA_LENGTH
-----------
         7
select length (timestamp) from abc;
LENGTH(TIMESTAMP)
-----------------
               9
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