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Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:41:59 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Paul Joseph Davis (Commented) (JIRA)" <jira@apache.org>
To: dev@couchdb.apache.org
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Subject: [jira] [Commented] (COUCHDB-1410) Formally define number support
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    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1410?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13207783#comment-13207783 ] 

Paul Joseph Davis commented on COUCHDB-1410:
--------------------------------------------

So this whole thing has really gotten blown out of proportion. While we have never formally documented what's going on internally, it can be described as such:

A number is parsed into one of two forms:

If the number contains a decimal point (".") or an exponent ("e" or "E") then the number is internally converted into an IEEE-754 floating point representation. This means that numbers containing either a decimal point or exponent are subject to the constraints of having a finite number of bits representing the number as is standard operating procedure.

If a number does not contain a decimal point or exponent then it is parsed as an integer with (theoretically) no loss of precision (I think precision is bound by the amount of RAM IIRC but I don't promise there aren't any bugs). (Side note for Jiffy, technically, if a number fits in a signed 64bit representation, that is used. If not then parsing is deferred back to Erlang which handles parsing as a bignum).

Literally, the only thing that's wrong in COUCHDB-1407 is that number formatting for doubles changed a wee bit and it has a simple fix and now people are getting all crazy about numbers and ignoring other places that JSON is munged. Blergh.
                
> Formally define number support
> ------------------------------
>
>                 Key: COUCHDB-1410
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1410
>             Project: CouchDB
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>    Affects Versions: 1.2
>            Reporter: Robert Newson
>            Priority: Blocker
>             Fix For: 1.3
>
>
> The JSON spec has a very loose definition of Number. CouchDB, as a database, should have well-defined and first class support for numbers (both integral and decimal). The precision of number support should be formally specified as should the algorithm used to represent floating-point values, especially where an approximation must be made in the conversion.

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