Inspect vector base type metadata

The following query confirms actual base type and dimensions of a column: SQL

Output columns:

: Number of dimensions defined for the vector.

: Internal numeric code for the base type:

=

=

: Human-readable description of the base type.

varchar

nvarchar

json vector

vector

vector_dimensions

vector_base_type

0

float32
1

float16 vector_base_type_desc

CREATE
VECTOR
INDEX vec_idx
ON
Articles(embedding)
WITH (
metric =
'cosine'
,
type
=
'diskANN'
);
-- Step 5: Perform a Vector Similarity Search
DECLARE
@qv
AS
VECTOR(5, float16) =
'[0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3]'
;
SELECT t.id,
t.title,
t.content,
s.distance
FROM
VECTOR_SEARCH(
table
= Articles
AS t,
column
= embedding,
similar_to = @qv,
metric =
'cosine'
,
top_n = 3
)
AS s
ORDER
BY s.distance, t.title;

--Inspect Vector Base type Metadata in sys.columns
SELECT name
AS column_name,
system_type_id,
user_type_id,
vector_dimensions,
vector_base_type,
vector_base_type_desc
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(
'dbo.Articles'
);