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#1 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 06:35 AM

Another thing I've always wondered about

, as I use
numerics far more than floats. From the docs:

"However, arithmetic on numeric values is very slow
compared to the integer types, or to the
floating-point types"

How much slower are numerics? And why (I guess it has
to do with potentially different sizes)?

Thanks,
CSN

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#2 (**permalink**) 04-09-2008, 06:35 AM

CSN <cool_screen_name90001@yahoo.com> writes:

> Another thing I've always wondered about

, as I use
> numerics far more than floats. From the docs:
>
> "However, arithmetic on numeric values is very slow
> compared to the integer types, or to the
> floating-point types"
>
> How much slower are numerics? And why (I guess it has
> to do with potentially different sizes)?

Integer and floating-point arithmetic are done in hardware. NUMERIC
is done in software, and is variable size (as you note). I would
guess that the difference in speed is at least an order of magnitude.

-Doug

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