Re: integer instead of 'double precision'?

thanks Tom and Guillaume,
*That sequencing of casting makes sense - I appreciate the clear
explanation.
*
*
*
On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Henry Drexler <alonup8tb(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > [ "1/3" yields zero ]
>
> Yeah, it's an integer division.
>
> > I thought perhaps I could cast it as double precision as noted on
> > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/interactive/sql-expressions.html
> > though doing the following:
> > float8(1/3)
>
> That's casting the result of the division to float, which is way too
> late. You need to cast one or both inputs to non-integer, for instance
>
> 1.0/3
> 1/(3::float8)
>
> etc etc.
>
> regards, tom lane
>