On Jun 7, 4:40 pm, Jeff Kish <jeff.k..._at_mro.com> wrote:
> 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
Datatype won't matter here. Whatever you choose, it is *VERY* unusual
(not to say undesirable) to have non-integer data constitute a PK.
--
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA
Received on Thu Jun 07 2007 - 10:05:36 CDT
