Re: Numeric overflow problem + patch

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 05:11:43PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
> > ! DETAIL:  A field with precision 4, scale 4 must have an absolute value less than 1.
> > [ becomes ]
> > ! DETAIL:  A field with precision 4, scale 4 must have an absolute value less than 1 - 5 * 10^-5.
>
> This strikes me as overly pedantic.  The message needs to be clear,
> and the proposed change will just confuse people.

It might, but the error that's currently in there is wrong.  With the
patch applied, you get:

postgres=# SELECT .99995::NUMERIC(4,4);
ERROR:  numeric field overflow
DETAIL:  A field with precision 4, scale 4 must have an absolute value less than 1 - 5 * 10^-5.

postgres=# SELECT .9999499999999999999999999999::NUMERIC(4,4);
 numeric
---------
  0.9999
(1 row)

I'd thought of changing it to the corresponding numeric piece, but
this doesn't work so well for NUMERIC(16,8) and the like.

Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
                              Skype: davidfetter

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