Re: floating point representation

Hiroshi Inoue <Inoue@tpf.co.jp> writes:
> The 7.1-release seems near.
> May I provide the followings ?
>     SET FLOAT4_PRECISION TO ..
>     SET FLOAT8_PRECISION TO ..

> Or must we postpone to fix it ?

This seems a small enough change that I do not fear fixing it at this
late date.  However, I do not like the idea of making the SET variables
be just number of digits precision.  As long as we're going to have SET
variables, let's go for the full flexibility offered by sprintf: define
the SET variables as the sprintf format strings to use.  The defaults
would be "%.7g" and "%.17g" (or thereabouts, not sure what number of
digits we are currently using).  This way, someone could select the C99
%a format if he knew that his libc supported it.  Or he could force a
particular format like %7.3f if that's what he needed in a specific
application.
        regards, tom lane