November 1, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Predict the outcome of the SQL statements
November 2, 2010 at 12:16 am
Nice question, thanks!
Though I think the explanation left a little to be desired. It isn't just that the decimal type was used, it was that the decimal type was used and no precision/scale was specified, so the number got rounded down to 1.0 when it was converted.
For example this results in the same thing as all of your float examples:
select Ceiling(convert(decimal(2, 1), 1.09))
Because with a scale of one specified it gets rounded to 1.1 before it goes to ceiling.
November 2, 2010 at 3:35 am
Knew the answer but had a brain fart and clicked the wrong option, oops!
UMG Developer is right about the explanation.
November 2, 2010 at 6:39 am
Good question but I think a better explaination is:
the default of decimal without parameters is (18,0) thus making 1.09 -> 1 and then the ceiling of 1 is 1
November 2, 2010 at 6:59 am
Thank you Old Hand. I knew the ceiling function brought you up to the next integer, but I couldn't figure out why the decimal was any different than the float on this one! You're explanation was what I was missing. For some reason I thought the default precision was 2, not 0. I'll be sure to remember that the next time I use a decimal data type.
November 2, 2010 at 7:06 am
I hope one thing that everybody has learned from these questions is that you should never rely on default precision for anything - you will inevitably get it wrong sooner or later
November 2, 2010 at 7:38 am
Good question, but as some have already noted the explanation is a bit lacking.
Also, the question was made too easy by the absence of the All 2s option as an answer choice - anyone who knows what ceiling means can eliminate all answers but the correct one with knowing anything at all about decimal or its default precision.
Tom
November 2, 2010 at 9:55 am
Tom.Thomson (11/2/2010)
Good question, but as some have already noted the explanation is a bit lacking.Also, the question was made too easy by the absence of the All 2s option as an answer choice - anyone who knows what ceiling means can eliminate all answers but the correct one with knowing anything at all about decimal or its default precision.
Yes, I agree. The best wrong answer was missing.
November 2, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Thanks for the question.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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November 3, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Good question, although it was more about convert than about ceiling.
A link to the msdn page for convert and decimal:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187928(SQL.90).aspx (convert)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187746.aspx (decimal/numeric)
The last page describes the gotcha of this question in the explanation of the scale.
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November 9, 2010 at 1:40 am
Nice question. Thanks
Thanks
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