Re: Breaking of existing apps with CVS version

At 23:27 22/11/00 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
>Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au> writes:
>>
>> Is there a reason why it doesn't promote float8 to numeric?
>
>Mixing exact and inexact numerics (to use the
>spec's terminology) can hardly be expected to produce an exact result.

I suppose it's a question of working in the most accurate representation
for each number to minimize inaccuracy, then representing the result as
accurately as possible. Since numeric is more accurate for calculation, I
assumes we'd use it if we had to choose. How we represent the result may be
up to the SQL standard.

All that aside, I was more worried that when people start upgrading to 7.1
we might be a flood of "my application doesn't work any more" bug reports. 


>However, it may indeed cause
>people to run into the numeric-vs-float8 ambiguity.

It's a little more than an ambiguity; anyone that mixes floats with sums
will get a crash in their application.



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