I plan on taking a look at this too. I think I had to solve it in the SQL 
Server adapter in my own way since it only stores milliseconds. If you care to 
look at our code, here are a few key sections in the tests.

http://github.com/rails-sqlserver/2000-2005-adapter/blob/master/test/cases/adapter_test_sqlserver.rb#L271
http://github.com/rails-sqlserver/2000-2005-adapter/blob/master/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlserver_adapter.rb#L328



On Jan 15, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Jacob Lauemøller wrote:

> Thanks for the response -- we use PostgreSQL which does store all six 
> microsecond digits.
> 
> Jacob
> 
> 
> On 15/01/2010, at 15.41, Chris Cruft wrote:
> 
>> I gave up on that kind of resolution when I found that MySQL doesn't
>> support it!  I'll try to test the patch though.
>> 
>> -Chris
>> 
>> On Jan 14, 10:20 am, Jacob Lauemøller <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> The microsecond handling in 
>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column#fast_string_to_time and 
>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column#microseconds fail for some values.
>>> 
>>> In slightly more than 1% of all possible 6-digit cases, writing a timestamp 
>>> to a database column and then reading it back in results in a different 
>>> value being returned to the program.
>>> 
>>> So, for instance, saving the timestamp
>>> 
>>>        2010-01-12 12:34:56.125014
>>> 
>>> and then loading it again from the database yields
>>> 
>>>        2010-01-12 12:34:56.125013
>>> 
>>> The problem occurs when the value read is converted from string form to a 
>>> Ruby timestamp, so it is largely database independent (the exception being 
>>> drivers that override the methods, or databases that don't support 
>>> timestamps at all).
>>> 
>>> The underlying problem is the use of to_i to convert from floats to ints 
>>> inside the affected methods. As you know, to_i simply truncates the result 
>>> and in some cases this causes rounding errors introduced by inherent 
>>> inaccuracies in the multiplication operations and decimal representation to 
>>> bubble up and affect the least significant digit.
>>> 
>>> Here's a simple test that illustrates the problem:
>>> 
>>>        converted = 
>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column.send('fast_string_to_time', 
>>> "2010-01-12 12:34:56.125014")
>>>        assert_equal 125014, converted.usec
>>> 
>>> This test case (and a similar one for #microseconds) fail on plain vanilla 
>>> Rails 2.3.5.
>>> 
>>> I guess the best solution would be to change the ISO_DATETIME regex used to 
>>> extract the microsecond-part from timestamps to not include the decimal 
>>> point at all and then avoid the to_f and subsequent floating point 
>>> multiplication completely inside the failing methods. However, these 
>>> regexes are defined as constants on 
>>> ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column::Format and therefore publicly 
>>> available, so the impact of changing these is difficult to ascertain.
>>> 
>>> A simpler solution is to use round() instead of to_i to convert from the 
>>> intermediate floating point result to int. This works (I have verified that 
>>> the precision is sufficient for all possible 6-digit cases) but is about 
>>> 15% slower than the current method. A small price to pay for correctness, 
>>> in my opinion.
>>> 
>>> I have attached a tiny patch (against 2.3.5) that switches the code to 
>>> using round() and a test case that verifies that the method works for a few 
>>> problematic cases that fail without the patch.
>>> 
>>> I have also created a Lighthouse ticket #3693:
>>> 
>>> https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/3...
>>> 
>>> Could some of you please take a look and see if the patch is acceptable and 
>>> maybe carry it into the code base?
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> Jacob
>>> 
>>> fix_microsecond_conversion.diff
>>> 4KViewDownload
>>> 
>>> 
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