Re: Reducing the overhead of NUMERIC data - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Jim C. Nasby
Subject Re: Reducing the overhead of NUMERIC data
Date
Msg-id 20051101223931.GQ20349@pervasive.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Reducing the overhead of NUMERIC data  (Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org>)
List pgsql-hackers
On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 11:16:58PM +0100, Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> Consider the algorithm: A number is stored as base + exponent. To
> multiply two numbers you can multiply the bases and add the exponents.
> OTOH, if you store the decimal inside the data, now you have to extract
> it again before you can do any calculating. So you've traded CPU time
> for disk space. Is diskspace cheaper or more expensive than CPU?
> Debatable I guess.

Well, I/O bandwidth is much more expensive than either CPU or disk
space...
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461


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