From: | Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> |
---|---|
To: | Jürgen Purtz <juergen(at)purtz(dot)de> |
Cc: | pgsql-docs(at)postgresql(dot)org |
Subject: | Re: Math function description issue |
Date: | 2016-06-07 20:11:13 |
Message-ID: | 25461.1465330273@sss.pgh.pa.us |
Views: | Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email |
Thread: | |
Lists: | pgsql-docs |
=?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=bcrgen_Purtz?= <juergen(at)purtz(dot)de> writes:
> The standard says:
> "<ceiling function> computes the least integer greater than or equal to
> its argument."
Hmm, you're looking at the SQL standard I guess. The existing wording
in our docs seems to be taken from the C/POSIX standard, which says
"[ceil(x)] shall compute the smallest integral value not less than x".
> a) In my opinion this wording is easier to understand because it avoids
> the negation via "not less".
That's a fair point.
The other difference is least/greatest versus smallest/largest. I'm not
sure if using least/greatest would help the people who misunderstand
"smallest" as "closest to zero". They might; but being less-common words,
they might also confuse people whose native language isn't English.
Anyone have an opinion about which to use?
> b) To dispel the ambiguities concerning what is greater or lesser (with
> negative numbers) we may add a second example with +42.8 and an
> additional comment - something like: "Please consider the situation with
> negative numbers: -42 is greater than -43".
I'm not terribly excited about that, and even if I were, there doesn't
seem to be a good way to shoehorn multiple examples into one entry in
these tables.
regards, tom lane
From | Date | Subject | |
---|---|---|---|
Next Message | Alvaro Herrera | 2016-06-07 23:11:48 | Re: Math function description issue |
Previous Message | Steve Crawford | 2016-06-07 15:14:04 | Re: Indicated Epoch 0 is incorrect |