Problem is that DECIMALs are currently stored as FLOAT or DOUBLE in the DB (at least MyISAM). MySQL AB is busy with adding a true monetary type (like MONEY) to the system.
What I am doing when using monetary values is putting them into floats if I can live with rounding problems or put them into in ints and multiply them by 100 (or 1000) before putting them there (thus taking care of the decimal point myself). Cheers /rudy ps: I wish DECIMALS would be stored as char :) -----Original Message----- From: John Hicks [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: dinsdag 15 juli 2003 21:39 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Best practice column type for storing decimal currency amounts? Is there an accepted best practice on whether to store decimal currency amounts (e.g. dollars and cents) in MySQL decimal column types? Certainly, the most straightforward way is to use decimal columns. But it appears that such values are stored as ASCII strings, which would be inefficient for calculations (requiring conversion to a numeric type for each calculation). I guess the alternative would be to use integer columns (and multiply by 100 to store the value as total cents). My particular context is a PHP/MySQL sales system. What's the consensus? Thanks much, --John -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]