Decimal Length

devidotcom · Post by **devidotcom** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:02 pm

Hi All,

I had a very simple question..

I have field of datatype Decimal (15,4)
Can I read a number value of 2774389000000 in this field?

I am trying to understand the Varchar length accepted to read the value.

Thanks

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:05 pm

Decimal(15,4) has a total of 15 significant digits. Four of these are to the right of the decimal point, which means you can have a maximum of 11 to the left of the decimal point.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:07 pm

So, can you have 2774389000000 in a Decimal(15,4) field?

jwiles · Post by **jwiles** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:18 pm

Your decimal definition states a total of 15 digits, 4 of which will be after the decimal point: 99999999999.9999. You can safely load any value up to a length matching the above format (17 bytes in total including decimal point and a sign).

Any value that exceeds the format definition risks being truncated (12 or more digits to the left of the decimal point, 5 or more to the right).

Value is the key word here. 1 and 0000000000000001 are different string lengths but have the same numeric value of 1--both have one significant digit.

Regards,