Tom Lane writes:
> > float4 => real
> > float8 => double precision
> Not just on your say-so. Arguments please?
SQL:
22)REAL specifies the data type approximate numeric, with implementation- defined precision.
23)DOUBLE PRECISION specifies the data type approximate numeric, with implementation-defined precision that is
greaterthan the implementation-defined precision of REAL.
Notice that there is no "at least" here anywhere.
> In the absence of pretty compelling reasons to change, I think
> "backwards compatibility" will have to win the day on something like
> this.
The REAL data type is not even documented. I'm evidently trying to get
people to think in terms of standard types rather than the internal,
low-level sounding names, but that won't work if the standard types aren't
really standard and the internal types don't have a standard equivalent.
Actually, if you read into the release history it says:
SQL standard-compliance (the following details changes that makes
postgres95 more compliant to the SQL-92 standard):* the following SQL types are now built-in: smallint, int(eger),
float,real, char(N), varchar(N), date and time. The following are aliases to existing postgres types:
smallint-> int2 integer, int -> int4 float, real -> float4 char(N) and varchar(N) are
implementedas truncated text types. In addition, char(N) does blank-padding.
So if you take that as documentation then my suggestion counts as a bug
fix. :-)
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Peter Eisentraut Sernanders väg 10:115
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