Precision/Scale question

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Precision/Scale question

krypto69

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Points: 13604
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April 13, 2010 at 9:11 am

#146417

I have a text file I import. The vendor has added some additional fields that I must now include as part of my import.
Problem is that they give me a guide to use, but they didn't include scale or precision for decimal fields. So some my decimal fields are cutting off the decimals.
Couldn't I just use a variant or varchar datatype here to capture all the vaules being sent?

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Ronald H SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4053 More actions · Answer 1

You could use float, but I wouldn't recommend that. If you use an insane high precision/scale (like DECIMAL(37,12)), it shouldn't give you problems?

Ronald HensbergenHelp us, help yourself... Post data so we can read and use it: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/-------------------------------------------------------------------------2+2=5 for significant large values of 2

krypto69 SSChampion Points: 13604 More actions · Answer 2

thanks for answering

so if I use a high precision/scale (like DECIMAL(37,12))

Will it then stop cutting off the numbers shown below?

The numbers I'm importing look like:

1997841.98000

752000.00000

3798077

Ronald H SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4053 More actions · Answer 3

DECIMAL(37,12) will have a precision of 37 digits, of which 12 are decimal.

So 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.000000000001 will be accepted and not truncated (and also negatives). If you need a column for my bank account, you may use another data type (for the negative amounts...) 😉

I use DECIMAL(25,12) a lot, which is quite exceptional already.

Check out this link for more help: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187746.aspx

Ronald HensbergenHelp us, help yourself... Post data so we can read and use it: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/-------------------------------------------------------------------------2+2=5 for significant large values of 2

krypto69 SSChampion Points: 13604 More actions · Answer 4

lol..I'll go ahead and make a deposit to your account.

thanks man!