Default value for a double

[Jon]

I've read that I can use a default value to avoid a nullable type in some situations.

Is this a good idea for a double? I'm a bit worried that one normally should not use if
(valDoub==???) due to the slightly inexact way that doubles are defined.

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

Not a big deal if you are default to something without a huge amount of
precision, like 0.0. Floating points are more problematic when you have many
digits to the right of the decimal point.

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[William Vaughn \(MVP\)]

True, but I'm in the "default to 'we don't know what the value is' " (NULL)
camp. It takes even less space.

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[Gregory Beamer]

I was just answering the question, but I would agree that NULL is a better
option that defaulting null objects. But that comes from my understanding of
how null is used in a database. ;-)

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[Jon]

Thanks for your reply Gregory.

I wouldn't be using 0.0 as the default since this can occur naturally in my data. I might consider
using something like 1e30.

Jon


Not a big deal if you are default to something without a huge amount of
precision, like 0.0. Floating points are more problematic when you have many
digits to the right of the decimal point.

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP: MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

Blog:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GregoryBeamer

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| Think Outside the Box! |
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