Re: SQL RAND function question

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Luis Colorado wrote:
> I think you have found a very interesting bug in the rand() function! I guess you should have the honor to report it to IBM.
>
> Very interesting finding. Although I agree that it is rather uncommon, given a large enough sample, this could break your programs.
>   
Even more fun... I created a field 31 digits long with 30 decimals.

I simply inserted rand() into that field and in 100,000 iterations I got 
five instances of 1.000000000(...).

So, whatever the precision used for rand(), it's evidently more than 31 
decimals, and that's a little scary.

I then upped the field size to 63 digits with 62 decimals.  SQL can't 
even display that; you get an overflow error.  But by using DIGITS I was 
able to check and see if the first digit was a one, and again I got five 
instances of 1.  Which means the precision is even greater than 62 
digits, which means you will get false endpoints.

Joe