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Re: ALERT: ORACLE 8 NUMERIC PROCESSING ERROR

From: Michel Cadot <micadot_at_altern.org>
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 17:55:25 +0200
Message-ID: <7p9cah$h76$1@oceanite.cybercable.fr>


The simple test in the web site below is : create table oracheck (val float(10));
insert into oracheck (val) values (11111); select val from oracheck;

       VAL


     11110

I'm not sure that it's a bug.

Actually, float(10) specifies a floating point number with *binary* precision 10 that is a *decimal* precision of 3 or 4 (conversion from binary to decimal precision is made by multiplying by 0.30103).

In the test, 11111 has 5 decimal digits, so it is converted to the precision requested that is 11110.

Peter Hanlon a écrit dans le message
<934817277.9570.0.nnrp-06.9e98b813_at_news.demon.co.uk>...
>ALERT: ORACLE 8 NUMERIC PROCESSING ERROR
>=======================================
>
>During a recent benchmarking exercise Hanlon Consulting engineers discovered
>that floating point data was being corrupted during loads using SQL*Loader.
>Further investigation revealed that the corruption was taking place on the
>Oracle 8 server and not in the loader itself, meaning that ALL oracle tools
>and bespoke software will be affected by the problem.
>
>Affected Systems
>================
>
>The bug affects database columns defined as "FLOAT" and is present under
>8.0.5 and 8.1.5 of Oracle. The bug may also exist in earlier versions of
>Oracle but these environments haven't been tested as yet. The platforms that
>have been tested are Solaris, Linux and HP-UX and they all behave in the
>same way.
>
>A web page with the platforms and Oracle versions affected is available at
>http://www.hanlon.co.uk/oraclebug. This page also contains some more
>information and a simple test that can be run against an Oracle instance to
>determine if your database is at risk. If you identify the problem please
>e-mail enquire_at_hanlon.co.uk with your Oracle version and platform and we
>will update the information on our page.
>
>Recommended action
>==================
>
>We currently believe that any data that has already been inserted into a
>float and corrupted will not be recoverable. A number of work-arounds are
>currently being tested to determine if a fix can be developed. Any fixes or
>work-arounds will be made available from http://www.hanlon.co.uk/oraclebug
>as they are developed.
>
>--
>Peter Hanlon.............................Email : pete_at_hanlon.co.uk
>Hanlon Consulting Ltd.............Phone : +44 (0)20 8391 4021
>http://www.hanlon.co.uk/ ........Fax : +44 (0)870 056 7283
>
>
Received on Mon Aug 16 1999 - 10:55:25 CDT

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