Re: [Firebird-docs] Scale of number and precision on floating data types

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

Hello ,

Wednesday, August 10, 2016, 9:20:50 PM, Martin Koeditz wrote:

> I hang on a text part in fblangref25-datatypes.xml -> fblangref25-datatypes-floattypes:
> Floating-point data types are examples of data stored in the DBMS with the precision matching the scale of the number.
 
> What is the scale of number? Please make this clear. Otherwise I don’t get the correct translation.
 
I don't like this at all.  I think it needs some input from Paul and
Dmitry and we should rewrite it.

The way I understand the storage of floating point numbers:

FLOAT is stored as INTEGER (precision 9, scale 0) with the scale
(stored separately) depending on the position of the decimal point.

DOUBLE PRECISION is stored as BIGINT (18,0) with scale
depending on the position of the decimal point.

So (as I understand), floating point and fixed point numbers are
stored in the same manner.  The difference - understood by the engine
- is that the *accuracy* of floating point numbers is reduced as the
scale increases.  The *accuracy* of the last two digits is always
unreliable;  hence, the more the decimal point moves to the right, the
less accurate the number.

This assumption does need confirmation or correction, though.

The correctness of the statement aside, is your question about how to
translate the words "precision" and "scale"?  Possibly Thomas can help
with that, as he did the German translations of quite a few of the
earlier documents and often writes articles for German publications.

Helen