parseFloat not good for type conversion

[brianc]

The type conversion for floats should be reexamined. Making a note here until I have time to look @ it further. context:

https://gist.github.com/shtylman/4757910

https://twitter.com/defunctzombie/status/301085763188166656

[freewil]

I think this is related #107

[freewil]

Maybe it's just time to use a string for numeric types?

[defunctzombie]

I suggested the use of num as another option since it will preserve value.

If not that, then I think string for numeric types are the way to go. The reason I would favor something like num would be to make it clearer that you can't just do val - 5 or whatnot and expect a correct result in js. If you return strings, you still allow the user to make such mistakes without being aware of the problems.

[freewil]

I suggested the use of num as another option since it will preserve value.

I don't think this is a good solution. I agree with your concern over users doing dumb things, and is a good reason why this should be called out and documented clearly in the README. I don't think it's a good idea to lock users into any specific arbitrary precision library.

If not that, then I think string for numeric types are the way to go.

👍

[defunctzombie]

@brianc any thoughts on making it just return a string? I have updated my code to use a custom parser for this that has been returning string and that has been better. I think string is the simplest lowest common thing we can do :)

[rpedela]

What about wrapping it with a BigNumber class for bigint and numeric? The class simply stores a string version of the number. But it is easier to test if the object is a BigNumber such as:

if (num instanceof BigNumber) {
  // use your favorite big number arithmetic library
}

I did this for a custom JSON parser since we needed to support large numbers on our server. You can find the custom JSON parser here: https://github.com/datalanche/json-bignum

[brianc]

That is an interesting and cool idea. You're saying basically wrap the string result of a number in a class that does nothing but hold the string so one could use 'instanceof' instead of just having to "know" a particular column is a number?

The only counter I have to that is you could easily make that an add-on module and snap it in to the type system instead of it being included with node-Postgres itself. Something like 'require("pg-big-number")'

Long term I am trying to make node-postgres less opinionated and push more features into other modules to be more "node-like"

Right now it suffers from being older than the idea of "do one tiny thing in each node module" itself.

On Mar 29, 2013, at 4:53 PM, Ryan Pedela notifications@github.com wrote:

What about wrapping it with a BigNumber class for int64 and numeric? The class simply stores a string version of the number. But it is easier to test if the object is a BigNumber such as:

if (num instanceof BigNumber) {
// use your favorite big number arithmetic library
}
I did this for a custom JSON parser since we needed to support large numbers on our server. You can find the custom JSON parser here: https://github.com/datalanche/json-bignum

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[defunctzombie]

@brianc I was talking about that earlier so that people would not try to
use the value as a raw string by accident.

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Brian C notifications@github.com wrote:

That is an interesting and cool idea. You're saying basically wrap the
string result of a number in a class that does nothing but hold the string
so one could use 'instanceof' instead of just having to "know" a particular
column is a number?

The only counter I have to that is you could easily make that an add-on
module and snap it in to the type system instead of it being included with
node-Postgres itself. Something like 'require("pg-big-number")'

Long term I am trying to make node-postgres less opinionated and push more
features into other modules to be more "node-like"

Right now it suffers from being older than the idea of "do one tiny thing
in each node module" itself.

On Mar 29, 2013, at 4:53 PM, Ryan Pedela notifications@github.com
wrote:

What about wrapping it with a BigNumber class for int64 and numeric? The
class simply stores a string version of the number. But it is easier to
test if the object is a BigNumber such as:

if (num instanceof BigNumber) {
// use your favorite big number arithmetic library
}
I did this for a custom JSON parser since we needed to support large
numbers on our server. You can find the custom JSON parser here:
https://github.com/datalanche/json-bignum

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/266#issuecomment-15663790
.

[rpedela]

@brianc Yes. I think a pg-bignum module would be fine too. We are currently switching our database from MySQL to Postgres. I could look into creating the module since we need to do it anyway.

[brianc]

this is now fixed in pg @v1.0