Re: Proposal for resolving casting issues

> > Note that if you write, say,
> > set numericcol = numericcol * 3.14159;
> > my proposal would do the "right thing" since the constant would be typed
> > as numeric to start with and would stay that way. To do what you want
> > with a float variable, it'd be necessary to write
> > set numericcol = numericcol * float4col::numeric;

Yes, that is the case where the new behavior would imho not be good (but you
say spec compliant). I loose precision even though there is room to hold it.

> > which is sort of ugly; but no uglier than
> > set float4col = float4col * numericcol::float4;

Informix does the calculations in numeric, and then converts the result
if no casts are supplied (would do set float4col = float4(float4col::numeric * numericcol)).

Would be interesting what others do ?

Test script:
create table atab (a decimal(30), b smallfloat, c decimal(30), d smallfloat);
insert into atab values (1.000000000000001,100000.0,0, 0);
update atab set c=a*b-b, d=a*b-b where 1=1;
select a*b-b, b, c,d from atab;

(expression) b c d

1e-10 100000.0000000 1e-10 1e-10

I hope this test is ok ?
It still seems to me, that numeric should be the preferred type, and not float8.

Andreas