[development] Converting floats stored in scientific notation back to decimals

[mark burdett]

I'd love to have both float and decimal fields provided by CCK.  I.e.
decimal fields could be renamed to float and a new decimal field could
be added.

--mark

On Nov 5, 2007 12:27 PM, Cog Rusty <cog.rusty at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/5/07, Walt Daniels <wdlists at optonline.net> wrote:
> > decimal numbers do not an exact binary representation (in general), e.g.
> > 1/3, within the finite field width of computers. Any time you convert you
> > have rounding issues which are messy at best. If your meaning of decimal
> > numbers is really just dollars and cents (not internationalizable) with 2
> > decimal places, then you should use integers (in cents) and then you just
> > have a formating problem.
>
>
> Since we are talking about updating/converting existing data, a
> question is what people could have possibly stored there. Just money?
> (and what currency?) Scientific measurements? Percentages and ratios?
> (and what precision did they expect?) Hence my reservations about
> storing fixed-point numbers.
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: development-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces at drupal.org]
> > On Behalf Of Karen Stevenson
> > Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 1:59 PM
> > To: development at drupal.org
> > Subject: Re: [development] Converting floats stored in scientific notation
> > back to decimals
> >
> > <snip>
> > Are you going to use something big, such as decimal(64,32)? Or are you
> > looking for a conversion which preserves the most significant digits up to
> > some point? How many decimal digits do you have in mind?
> >
> > Perhaps I don't understand this correctly, but storing the values as
> > decimals looks like trouble to me.
> > </snip>
> >
> > Changing from a float column to a decimal column is an issue that was very
> > important to a lot of people and I'm trying to make that happen. I am
> > assuming that a decimal field with two decimals would be the type of column
> > people would expect for the CCK decimal field, but I don't know for sure
> > what size or precision would be best.
> >
> > Anyway, what I'm really trying to do is find a volunteer familiar with and
> > interested in getting a real decimal field in CCK who can figure out what is
> > needed and create a patch for this. I'm trying to get the D6 port done and
> > don't have time to do it. If I do spend time doing it, it will delay getting
> > CCK ported to 6x.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Karen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> > Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.15.22/1111 - Release Date: 11/5/2007
> > 4:36 AM
> >
> >
> >
>