VECTORPROPERTY (Transact-SQL)

Applies to: SQL Server 2025 (17.x) Preview Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance SQL database in Microsoft Fabric Preview

The VECTORPROPERTY function returns specific properties of a given vector. The function requires two arguments: the vector itself and the property to be retrieved.

Syntax

Transact-SQL syntax conventions

VECTORPROPERTY(vector , property)

Arguments

vector

A valid vector of the vector type. This can be an expression, such as a variable or a reference to a column.

The input vector might be specified as [tablename].[colname] or as a valid variable of the vector type.

property

An expression specifying the name of the database property to return. The property supports one of the following values:

The default base type for vectors is currently set to float (32-bit).

Return value

The function returns the specific properties of a given vector based on the property selected. For example:

• If the property is Dimensions, the function returns an integer value representing the dimension count of the vector.
• If the property is BaseType, the function returns the name of the data type (sysname).

Examples

Retrieve dimension count

In the following example, declare a vector with three dimensions and retrieve its dimensions count. The VECTORPROPERTY function returns the integer value 3 representing the dimension count.

DECLARE @v AS VECTOR(3) = '[1,2,3]';

SELECT VECTORPROPERTY(@v, 'Dimensions');

Return count of dimensions

The following example retrieves the dimensions count of a vector column embeddings from a table mytable.

CREATE TABLE mytable
(
    id INT IDENTITY NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
    embeddings VECTOR(3) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO mytable (embeddings)
VALUES
    ('[4, -2, -1]'),
    ('[1, 3, -5]'),
    ('[7, -8, -10]'),
    ('[4.0, 0.2, -1.1]'),
    ('[0, 0, 0]'),
    ('[10, 10, 10]'),
    ('[-0.1, -0.2, -0.3]');

SELECT VECTORPROPERTY(t.embeddings, 'dimensions')
FROM mytable AS t;

Returns:

Dimensions
----------
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

Related content

• Vector search and vector indexes in the SQL Database Engine
• Azure SQL Database Vector Search Samples