The problem only manifests itself if the sub-second part is stored with 4 or 
more significant digits. So if you only store and retrieve milliseconds (and 
thats the way I read your code) you should be home safe.

On 15/01/2010, at 15.56, Ken Collins wrote:

> 
> I plan on taking a look at this too. I think I had to solve it in the SQL 
> Server adapter in my own way since it only stores milliseconds. If you care 
> to look at our code, here are a few key sections in the tests.
> 
> http://github.com/rails-sqlserver/2000-2005-adapter/blob/master/test/cases/adapter_test_sqlserver.rb#L271
> http://github.com/rails-sqlserver/2000-2005-adapter/blob/master/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlserver_adapter.rb#L328
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 15, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Jacob Lauemøller wrote:
> 
>> Thanks for the response -- we use PostgreSQL which does store all six 
>> microsecond digits.
>> 
>> Jacob
>> 
>> 
>> On 15/01/2010, at 15.41, Chris Cruft wrote:
>> 
>>> I gave up on that kind of resolution when I found that MySQL doesn't
>>> support it!  I'll try to test the patch though.
>>> 
>>> -Chris
>>> 
>>> On Jan 14, 10:20 am, Jacob Lauemøller <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> 
>>>> The microsecond handling in 
>>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column#fast_string_to_time and 
>>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column#microseconds fail for some values.
>>>> 
>>>> In slightly more than 1% of all possible 6-digit cases, writing a 
>>>> timestamp to a database column and then reading it back in results in a 
>>>> different value being returned to the program.
>>>> 
>>>> So, for instance, saving the timestamp
>>>> 
>>>>       2010-01-12 12:34:56.125014
>>>> 
>>>> and then loading it again from the database yields
>>>> 
>>>>       2010-01-12 12:34:56.125013
>>>> 
>>>> The problem occurs when the value read is converted from string form to a 
>>>> Ruby timestamp, so it is largely database independent (the exception being 
>>>> drivers that override the methods, or databases that don't support 
>>>> timestamps at all).
>>>> 
>>>> The underlying problem is the use of to_i to convert from floats to ints 
>>>> inside the affected methods. As you know, to_i simply truncates the result 
>>>> and in some cases this causes rounding errors introduced by inherent 
>>>> inaccuracies in the multiplication operations and decimal representation 
>>>> to bubble up and affect the least significant digit.
>>>> 
>>>> Here's a simple test that illustrates the problem:
>>>> 
>>>>       converted = 
>>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.send('fast_string_to_time', 
>>>> "2010-01-12 12:34:56.125014")
>>>>       assert_equal 125014, converted.usec
>>>> 
>>>> This test case (and a similar one for #microseconds) fail on plain vanilla 
>>>> Rails 2.3.5.
>>>> 
>>>> I guess the best solution would be to change the ISO_DATETIME regex used 
>>>> to extract the microsecond-part from timestamps to not include the decimal 
>>>> point at all and then avoid the to_f and subsequent floating point 
>>>> multiplication completely inside the failing methods. However, these 
>>>> regexes are defined as constants on 
>>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column::Format and therefore publicly 
>>>> available, so the impact of changing these is difficult to ascertain.
>>>> 
>>>> A simpler solution is to use round() instead of to_i to convert from the 
>>>> intermediate floating point result to int. This works (I have verified 
>>>> that the precision is sufficient for all possible 6-digit cases) but is 
>>>> about 15% slower than the current method. A small price to pay for 
>>>> correctness, in my opinion.
>>>> 
>>>> I have attached a tiny patch (against 2.3.5) that switches the code to 
>>>> using round() and a test case that verifies that the method works for a 
>>>> few problematic cases that fail without the patch.
>>>> 
>>>> I have also created a Lighthouse ticket #3693:
>>>> 
>>>> https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/3...
>>>> 
>>>> Could some of you please take a look and see if the patch is acceptable 
>>>> and maybe carry it into the code base?
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Jacob
>>>> 
>>>> fix_microsecond_conversion.diff
>>>> 4KViewDownload
>>>> 
>>>> 
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