Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> Sorry, I am confused.  If our computational range is that high, why does
> SELECT factorial(4000) and SELECT factorial(6000) produce the same
> number of digits on my screen.

Are you counting correctly?

regression=# select log(factorial(4000));
          log
------------------------
 12673.2621666764869773
(1 row)

regression=# select log(factorial(6000));
        log
--------------------
 20065.428782473590
(1 row)

regression=# select factorial(4000)
regression-# \g z4000
regression=# select factorial(6000)
regression-# \g z6000
regression=# \q
$ wc z4000 z6000
5 5 38039 z4000
5 5 60215 z6000

The actual representation limit at the moment (with int16 weights in the
storable format) is 10^128K, as you can soon prove with pow():

regression=# select pow(10::numeric, 131071);
	<< lots o zeroes >>
regression=# select pow(10::numeric, 131072);
ERROR:  value overflows numeric format

I don't recall what factorial that might correspond to, but it's
considerably above 6000.

			regards, tom lane

In response to

• Re: Numeric 508 datatype at 2005-12-02 18:42:40 from Bruce Momjian

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• Re: Numeric 508 datatype at 2005-12-02 19:09:08 from Bruce Momjian

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