Posted by Joe Weinstein on 08/27/05 01:23

jaijai_kumar@hotmail.com wrote:

> Select Cast('100.1234' as float)
> give me the result 100.1234
> Now when I convert it back to char I want exactly 100.1234
> Select Convert(char(100),Cast('100.1234' as float))
> Gives me 100.123 (Here I was expecting 100.1234)
>
> When I do
> Select STR(Cast('100.1234' as float),25,4)
> I get back the result as 100.1234
>
> However here I am not sure how many digits do I have after the decimal
> point. If I put some value like
> Select STR(Cast('100.1234' as float),25,8)
> I get 0's appended to it, which is again not desired.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jai

Hi Jai. I want to warn you about going down this path.
You will never get exactly what you want all the time,
because there is a base converson from base 10 to binary,
and there are lots of distressingly simple-seeming
decimal numbers that do not convert exactly to a binary
float. Then converting back will show the loss by giving
a different value. I suggest using a DECIMAL datatype
if you want to retain exactitude...

Joe Weinstein at BEA Systems

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