<< This is not really a bug, this is a limitation of a data type that uses only 4 bytes to store the value. You cannot preserve precision to more than 6 significant digits with the REAL data type. Counting the "." as a significant digit, you are asking for 7. >>
Bill: This system has been in continuous operation for about 20 years, never showing this display issue prior to this morning. Prior to this morning the numbers displayed as expected. After the update, the display is different between SELECT and BROWSE and the BROWSE display is different than it was yesterday. It's possible that the new BROWSE format is technically "correct" in terms of what you should see from a float (although I don't think so in most cases, see below), but it breaks this entire system. Also, shouldn't SELECT and BROWSE display the same value? As to the issue with REALs being limited in terms of the precision of the mantissa, I'm aware of that. In the case I cited I'm only asking for six digits of precision (the location of the decimal point is determined by the exponent, the six digits of mantissa precision don't count the decimal). That said, I do not believe that this is a _storage_ issue, but rather a display issue. That's because the database includes some REALs that correctly display even with 7 digits of precision. For instance, the number 99907.19 displays that way in SELECT and as 99907.190000000002 in BROWSE. (Or it may be. R:Base states that REAL has six digits of accuracy, but C floats have, if I recall correctly, 7 digits and this database only goes up to 7 digits). At a guess, I think what's happening is that R:Base has started casting REAL to DOUBLE before displaying the number in BROWSE or Forms (but not SELECT). Please try the following attached to RRBWY14. You'll see the issue right away: UPDATE Levels SET LevPerc = 50000.1 WHERE COUNT = 1 UPDATE Levels SET LevPerc = 99907.19 WHERE COUNT = 1 SELECT LevPerc FROM Levels WHERE COUNT < 3 BROWSE LevPerc FROM Levels WHERE COUNT < 3 You will see that SELECT and BROWSE produce different results. At the very least, they should display the numbers the same way. Furthermore, prior to this morning, BROWSE (and forms, which also show the change) produced the result you see in SELECT. -- Larry
