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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-4271?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13624259#comment-13624259
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Eric Hanson commented on HIVE-4271:
-----------------------------------
Okay, that sounds fine. If we document from the beginning to use 18 digits or
less in your schema design unless you need more, that'll help. It should be
possible to make the case for 19..36 digits quite fast too, though there will
be a penalty.
> Limit precision of decimal type
> -------------------------------
>
> Key: HIVE-4271
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-4271
> Project: Hive
> Issue Type: Bug
> Reporter: Gunther Hagleitner
> Assignee: Gunther Hagleitner
> Attachments: HIVE-4271.1.patch, HIVE-4271.2.patch, HIVE-4271.3.patch,
> HIVE-4271.4.patch, HIVE-4271.5.patch
>
>
> The current decimal implementation does not limit the precision of the
> numbers. This has a number of drawbacks. A maximum precision would allow us
> to:
> - Have SerDes/filformats store decimals more efficiently
> - Speed up processing by implementing operations w/o generating java
> BigDecimals
> - Simplify extending the datatype to allow for decimal(p) and decimal(p,s)
> - Write a more efficient BinarySortable SerDe for sorting/grouping/joining
> Exact numeric datatype are typically used to represent money, so if the limit
> is high enough it doesn't really become an issue.
> A typical representation would pack 9 decimal digits in 4 bytes. So, with 2
> longs we can represent 36 digits - which is what I propose as the limit.
> Final thought: It's easier to restrict this now and have the option to do the
> things above than to try to do so once people start using the datatype.
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