Andrew, This has been quite helpful. My main concern is CPU cost. Thanks for the input.
--Radhika > On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 02:53:54PM -0400, Radhika Sambamurti wrote: >> that hold money fields and rates from varchar to float. I do not want to >> convert to numeric because numeric is a special string type. > > I think you should reconsider. The _only_ correct storage for your > money data (i.e. if you want to do calculations on them) is numeric. > Float is always wrong, in every application, for this sort of work. > Obviously, you can store the values as text, but if you want to do > calculations, you'll need to cast (in which case you're casting to > numeric, I hope, or you could lose precision). > >> The question is: how accurate is floating point numbers in Postgres. We > > As accurate as they are in the underlying C implementation, which is > to say "not accurate enough for financial data". > > A > > -- > Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] > A certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are > against all taxes for raising money to pay it off. > --Alexander Hamilton > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend > -- It is all a matter of perspective. You choose your view by choosing where to stand. Larry Wall --- ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
