Re: Oracle internal NUMBER type

From: Jaroslaw Gramacki <J.Gramacki_at_iie.pz.zgora.pl>
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 10:04:19 GMT
Message-ID: <3dc79516.8002947@news.ict.pwr.wroc.pl>

On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 12:09:34 +0300, "Vladimir M. Zakharychev" <bob_at_dpsp-yes.com> wrote:

>Different processors implement floating-point arithmetic differently.
>Besides, Oracle may be ran on a platform with no FPU unit whatsoever.
>At the same time, Oracle guarantees portability of values with precision
>up to 38 decimal digits across all supported platforms. No wonder they
>implemented floating-point math that way...
>

OK, but ...
Say you have a looooot of data in your database and need to perform math intensive calculations on them.
What would be better - perform all math (algorithms) in e.g pl/sql or outside oracle in e.g C language but in the latter you are thrown back on float, double or long double.
And what if you perform some calculations in oracle and some outside?

>--
>Vladimir Zakharychev (bob@dpsp-yes.com) http://www.dpsp-yes.com
>Dynamic PSP(tm) - the first true RAD toolkit for Oracle-based internet applications.
>All opinions are mine and do not necessarily go in line with those of my employer.
>
>

>> Well, I had in mind something more detailed like e.g ANSI/IEEE 754 -
>> 198 standard for binary floating-point arithemtic norm description.
>> With in-depth format description, operations, exceptions, etc.
>> Oracle does not use math-coproc. (with build-in FPU) to perform math
>> calculations but implements a whole arithmetic by itself.
>>

>> Jaroslaw Gramacki, Ph.D.
>> University of Zielona Gora, Poland
>> e-mail : J.Gramacki_at_iie.uz.zgora.pl
>> phone : (+48 68) 3282536
>> fax : (+48 68) 3244733
>

Jaroslaw Gramacki, Ph.D.
University of Zielona Gora, Poland

e-mail  : J.Gramacki_at_iie.uz.zgora.pl
phone   : (+48 68) 3282536
fax     : (+48 68) 3244733

Received on Tue Nov 05 2002 - 04:04:19 CST