FreeTDS Development Group

["Lowden, James K" <LowdenJK AT bernstein.com>]

> From: Alexander A. Vlasov
> Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 8:50 AM
> 
> I noticed following strange behavior of FreeTDS: numeric columns
> appears like floating point. For example, if I create a test table
> (id numeric(8)), insert one value, say '1', into it and select *
> from this table with sqsh built with FreeTDS, I got a '1.000000'.
> But with isql, result is just '1'. Same thing with PHP built with
> FreeTDS.
> 
> How can I correct this behavior? Thanks in advance.

What would "correct" be?  

The server transmits your numeric(8) value in binary form, as a data
structure.  The library provides the data to the application.  It can
convert the data to another form -- integer, character, floating point
-- or not, according to the application's request.  

As a carbon-based life form, you can't read bits.  To interpret the
data, you need it converted to strings that can be rendered on your
screen.  The application -- sqsh, isql, what have you -- converts the
data to character form for your viewing comfort.  It's up to the
application to decide how to do that.  

Numerics are normally used to avoid floating point approximations.
Representing them in decimal form with some fixed precision doesn't seem
wrong to me.  Sure, it could take note of the scale and change its
rendering accordingly.  If you think that's a good idea, well, you know.
The project accepts patches.  

HTH.  

--jkl

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