float storage

From: Jeff Kish <jeff.kish_at_mro.com>
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:40:48 -0400
Message-ID: <rr5g63dd1rqo2hq8abojqb00s7lfuchrfm@4ax.com>

Greetings.

I need to convert some columns of type number(12) to hold floating point information scale and precision I can't determine in advance (customer data can vary wildly) so I wanted to use the datatype that offers the maximum scale and precision..

the customers can have anywhere from Oracle 9i onwards.

I used the oracle 9i docs to drive my decision.

I noticed that the number type offers "maximum scale and precision", but the float type offers the same precision, but no limit on the scale.

I'm a bit confused as to which offers superior storage given that description. Then I figured, the chances are that converting to either 'number' or 'float' would in all likelyhood be good enough. (comment?)

So then I wondered, since these two columns are part of a primary key, is one significantly better with respect to columns that are indexed?

thanks
Jeff
Jeff Kish Received on Thu Jun 07 2007 - 09:40:48 CDT