Re: Re: [BUGS] Unnexpected results using to_number()

On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Tom Lane wrote:

> Karel Zak <zakkr(at)zf(dot)jcu(dot)cz> writes:
> > On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> "Andrew Snow" <andrew(at)modulus(dot)org> writes:
> >>>> # SELECT to_number('12,454.8-', '');
> >>>> pqReadData() -- backend closed the channel unexpectedly.
> >>
> >> In current sources I get a NULL result, which seems to be what the
> >> code author intended originally. However this seems a little bit
>
> > my original code not return NULL, but return numeric_in(NULL, 0, 0) for
> > this situation.
>
> Yeah, I know. What did you expect that to produce, if not a NULL?

It is a numeric_in() problem :-), but yes, it is still NULL.

>
> >> inconsistent --- shouldn't it raise a bad-format error instead?
>
> What do you think about raising an error instead of returning NULL?

Oracle:
SVRMGR> select to_number('12,454.8-', '') from dual;
TO_NUMBER(
----------
ORA-01722: invalid number

I mean that we can use ERROR here too. My original idea was same form for
to_char and for to_number --- for to_char() Oracle say:

SVRMGR> select to_char(SYSDATE, '') from dual;
TO_CHAR(S
---------

1 row selected.

I not sure here what is better. If you mean that ERROR is better I will
change it in some next patch fot formattin.c.

Comments?

Karel