Re: 7 decimal digits precision for real

On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 10:31:49PM +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:
>
> Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/datatype-numeric.html
> Description:
>
> When I try to run
> `insert into employees (r_id) values (3.919192199);`
> where r_id is of type real, I see it stores as 3.9191923 and not 6.
> Am I understanding anything wrong ? isn't the range specified is 6 digits
> precision?

Those extra digits are not guaraneteed to be precise, but usually are
close to accurate, so we include, them. You can diable that with
extra_float_digits = 0:

SELECT '3.919192199'::real;
float4
-----------
3.9191923

SHOW extra_float_digits;
extra_float_digits
--------------------
1

SET extra_float_digits = 0;
SELECT '3.919192199'::real;
float4
---------
3.91919

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com

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