Re: Native type for storing fractions (e.g 1/3)?

From: Ron Johnson <ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Native type for storing fractions (e.g 1/3)?
Date: 2007-03-15 13:00:32
Message-ID: 45F94370.6060609@cox.net
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On 03/15/07 01:41, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
>> On 03/14/07 18:55, Ken Johanson wrote:
>>> In SQL servers in general, or in PG, is there a native field type
>>> to store fractions? Or must one resort to char or separate
>>> numerator/denominator columns?
>> 1/3 repeats ad infinitum, and '1/3' would have to be converted to
>> 0.3333333333 before used in a computation, so:
>>
>> What's your ultimate purpose or goal?
>
> His goal may be to store and compute rational numbers exactly. The
> answer is that there is no data type in PostgreSQL that supports this.
>
True. However, with a composite type and stored procedures he could
fulfill that purpose.

CREATE TYPE ty_fraction AS
(
n SMALLINT,
d SMALLINT
);

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