Re: AW: type conversion discussion - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: AW: type conversion discussion
Date
Msg-id 6249.958708282@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: AW: type conversion discussion  (Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>)
List pgsql-hackers
Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> (The workaround here could be to convert numerics that are wider
> than floats to `infinity' :-)

Hmm, that's actually not a bad idea.  Infinity is a pretty portable
notion these days, what with nearly everyone toeing the IEEE float
line ... so we could have numeric->float generate a NaN if possible
and only resort to an elog() on machines without NaN.

OTOH, no mathematician will accept the notion that 1e1000 is the
same as infinity ;-).  Mathematical purity would probably favor
the elog.

Comments anyone?
        regards, tom lane


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