Re: strange sum behaviour - Mailing list pgsql-general

From John D. Burger
Subject Re: strange sum behaviour
Date
Msg-id ba6070e5dc737f2c2b64c10483297461@mitre.org
Whole thread Raw
In response to strange sum behaviour  ("Andrew Baerg" <andrew.baerg@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
Andrew Baerg wrote:

> corp=# select amount from acc_trans where trans_id=19721 and
> chart_id=10019;
> amount
> ---------
>    4.88
>   117.1
> -121.98
> (3 rows)
>
> corp=# select sum(amount) from acc_trans where trans_id=19721 and
> chart_id=10019;
>         sum
> ----------------------
> -1.4210854715202e-14
> (1 row)
>

This has nothing to do with SUM():

 > select 4.88::float + 117.1::float + -121.98::float;
        ?column?
----------------------
  -1.4210854715202e-14
(1 row)

It's just the inherent inexactness of floating point, and probably not
even particular to Postgres.

- John D. Burger
   MITRE


pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: "Andrew Baerg"
Date:
Subject: Re: strange sum behaviour
Next
From: Ron Johnson
Date:
Subject: Re: Anonymous stored procedures