Home Forums SQL Server 2014 Development - SQL Server 2014 Cast Varchar to Float Resulting In (Scientific) E Notation RE: Cast Varchar to Float Resulting In (Scientific) E Notation

  • August 25, 2016 at 9:41 am

    #1897510

    waxingsatirical (8/25/2016)

    Well what is the "Why"? Why are floats not considered best practice by some?

    I don't know what unnecessary work later is incurred by using floats, but I know of lots that is incurred by using decimals. Such as, resizing columns when data sizes go up or accuracy changes, having to constantly avoid multiplication gotchas which cause tricky-to-spot rounding bugs.

    The main cause is that float is an approximate numeric data type. You can get some unpleasant surprises when trying to do math or retrieving a different value that what you expected to have stored.

    Here's an example: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1811927-2799-1.aspx

    Luis C.
    General Disclaimer:
    Are you seriously taking the advice and code from someone from the internet without testing it? Do you at least understand it? Or can it easily kill your server?

    How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help: Option 1 / Option 2