CODEWITHSUNDEEP
mysql
Jon Lorusso
Jon Lorusso

Reputation: 488

Is there any difference between DOUBLE(n, 0) and BIGINT(n) MySQL Datatypes?

Is there any reason to use a DOUBLE(n, 0) over a BIGINT(n) in MySQL? If the data will never have a decimal portion, is there any reason to store as a DOUBLE?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 12266

Answers (1)

Michael - sqlbot
Michael - sqlbot

Reputation: 178966

There is only one reason to ever use DOUBLE or FLOAT in MySQL -- if scale and/or storage efficiency are important, but precision is not. This is not a limitation of MySQL, but rather of floating point numbers in general, which is that they are stored as approximate values.

Integers will be stored cleanly up to only about 2⁵³, which is smaller than BIGINT. Most (though not all) integers beyond that range will be stored as a value that is only close to correct.

Floating-point numbers sometimes cause confusion because they are approximate and not stored as exact values. A floating-point value as written in an SQL statement may not be the same as the value represented internally. Attempts to treat floating-point values as exact in comparisons may lead to problems. They are also subject to platform or implementation dependencies.

— Problems with Floating Point Values

For integers, use one of the *INT types. For decimal, use DECIMAL.

Upvotes: 5

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