Re: Exponentiation confusion

From: Dean Rasheed <dean(dot)a(dot)rasheed(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, Erik Wienhold <ewie(at)ewie(dot)name>, Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Exponentiation confusion
Date: 2022-10-20 09:18:34
Message-ID: CAEZATCUDZzXF7033-a-PfONCHLf6ZRv8OPphxQGEf8svmKfi9g@mail.gmail.com
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On Tue, 18 Oct 2022 at 20:18, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 6:18 AM Dean Rasheed <dean(dot)a(dot)rasheed(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > Overall, I'm quite happy with these results. The question is, should
> > this be back-patched?
> >
> > In the past, I think I've only back-patched numeric bug-fixes where
> > the digits output by the old code were incorrect or an error was
> > thrown, not changes that resulted in a different number of digits
> > being output, changing the precision of already-correct results.
> > However, having 10.0^(-18) produce zero seems pretty bad, so my
> > inclination is to back-patch, unless anyone objects.
>
> I don't think that back-patching is a very good idea. The bar for
> changing query results should be super-high. Applications can depend
> on the existing behavior even if it's wrong.
>

OK, on reflection, I think that makes sense. Applied to HEAD only.

Regards,
Dean

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