Re: Infinities in type numeric

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 1:01 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> This does tie into something I have a question about in the patch's
> comments though. As the patch stands, numeric(numeric, integer)
> (that is, the typmod-enforcement function) just lets infinities
> through regardless of the typmod, on the grounds that it is/was also
> letting NaNs through regardless of typmod. But you could certainly
> make the argument that Inf should only be allowed in an unconstrained
> numeric column, because by definition it overflows any finite precision
> restriction. If we did that, you'd never see Inf in a
> standard-conforming column, since SQL doesn't allow unconstrained
> numeric columns IIRC. That'd at least ameliorate your concern.

Yes, I agree. It also seems like a more principled choice - I am not
sure why if I ask for a number no larger than 10^3 we ought to permit
infinity.

BTW, has there been any thought to supporting a negative scale for the
numeric data type? If you can cut off digits after the decimal, why
not before?

--
Robert Haas
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