Fix corner-case errors and loss of precision in numeric_power().
This fixes a couple of related problems that arise when raising
numbers to very large powers.
Firstly, when raising a negative number to a very large integer power,
the result should be well-defined, but the previous code would only
cope if the exponent was small enough to go through power_var_int().
Otherwise it would throw an internal error, attempting to take the
logarithm of a negative number. Fix this by adding suitable handling
to the general case in power_var() to cope with negative bases,
checking for integer powers there.
Next, when raising a (positive or negative) number whose absolute
value is slightly less than 1 to a very large power, the result should
approach zero as the power is increased. However, in some cases, for
sufficiently large powers, this would lose all precision and return 1
instead of 0. This was due to the way that the local_rscale was being
calculated for the final full-precision calculation:
local_rscale = rscale + (int) val - ln_dweight + 8
The first two terms on the right hand side are meant to give the
number of significant digits required in the result ("val" being the
estimated result weight). However, this failed to account for the fact
that rscale is clipped to a maximum of NUMERIC_MAX_DISPLAY_SCALE
(1000), and the result weight might be less then -1000, causing their
sum to be negative, leading to a loss of precision. Fix this by
forcing the number of significant digits calculated to be nonnegative.
It's OK for it to be zero (when the result weight is less than -1000),
since the local_rscale value then includes a few extra digits to
ensure an accurate result.
Finally, add additional underflow checks to exp_var() and power_var(),
so that they consistently return zero for cases like this where the
result is indistinguishable from zero. Some paths through this code
already returned zero in such cases, but others were throwing overflow
errors.
Dean Rasheed, reviewed by Yugo Nagata.
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAEZATCW6Dvq7+3wN3tt5jLj-FyOcUgT5xNoOqce5=6Su0bCR0w@mail.gmail.com
Branch
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REL_14_STABLE
Details
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https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/0d6b87497e32a5b15be8fa3247b8fae48358bb1b
Modified Files
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src/backend/utils/adt/numeric.c | 81 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
src/test/regress/expected/numeric.out | 55 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
src/test/regress/sql/numeric.sql | 11 +++++
3 files changed, 132 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)
