Oh, gosh.

No wonder our industry has a bad name.

Tom, here is something for you (and others) to think about.

And verify your instincts.

DECLARE @D DECIMAL (38, 28), @F FLOAT

SET @D = 1.001 SET @F = 1.001

SELECT 0 [Number of Operations],

@D,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D, 'Precision') DecimalPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D, 'Scale') DecimalScale,

@F,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F, 'Precision') FloatPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F, 'Scale') FloatScale

UNION

SELECT 1 ,

CONVERT(DECIMAL (38, 28), @D*@D),

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D, 'Precision') DecimalPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D, 'Scale') DecimalScale,

@F*@F,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F, 'Precision') FloatPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F, 'Scale') FloatScale

UNION

SELECT 2 ,

CONVERT(DECIMAL (38, 28), @D*@D*@D),

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D*@D, 'Precision') DecimalPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D*@D, 'Scale') DecimalScale,

@F*@F*@F,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F*@F, 'Precision') FloatPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F*@F, 'Scale') FloatScale

UNION

SELECT 3 ,

CONVERT(DECIMAL (38, 28), @D*@D*@D*@D),

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D*@D*@D, 'Precision') DecimalPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@D*@D*@D*@D, 'Scale') DecimalScale,

@F*@F*@F*@F,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F*@F*@F, 'Precision') FloatPrecision,

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY(@F*@F*@F*@F, 'Scale') FloatScale