Storing statistical data, do I need DECIMAL, FLOAT

Question

I am creating for fun, but I still want to approach it seriously, a site which hosts various tests. With these tests I hope to collect statistical data.

Some of the data will include the percentage of the completeness of the tests as they are timed. I can easily compute the percentage of the tests but I would like true data to be returned as I store the various different values concerning the tests on completion.

Most of the values are, in PHP floats, so my question is, if I want true statistical data should I store them in MYSQL as FLOAT, DOUBLE or DECIMAL.

I would like to utilize MYSQL'S functions such as AVG() and LOG10() as well as TRUNCATE(). For MYSQL to return true data based off of my values that I insert, what should I use as the database column choice.

I ask because some numbers may or may not be floats such as, 10, 10.89, 99.09, or simply 0. But I would like true and valid statistical data to be returned.

Can I rely on floating point math for this?

EDIT

I know this is a generic question, and I apologise extensively, but for non mathematicians like myself, also I am not a MYSQL expert, I would like an opinion of an expert in this field.

I have done my research but I still feel I have a clouded judgement on the matter. Again I apologise if my question is off topic or not suitable for this site.

Answer 1

Decimal : Fixed-Point Types (Exact Value). Use it when you care about exact precision like money.

Example: salary DECIMAL(8,2), 8 is the total number of digits, 2 is the number of decimal places. salary will be in the range of -999999.99 to 999999.99

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Float, Double : Floating-Point Types (Approximate Value). Float uses 4 bytes to represent value, Double uses 8 bytes to represent value.

Example: percentage FLOAT(5,2), same as the type decimal, 5 is total digits and 2 is the decimal places. percentage will store values between -999.99 to 999.99.

Note that they are approximate value, in this case:

• Value like 1 / 3.0 = 0.3333333... will be stored as 0.33 (2 decimal place)
• Value like 33.009 will be stored as 33.01 (rounding to 2 decimal place)

Answer 2

This link does a good job of explaining what you are looking for. Here is what is says:

All these three Types, can be specified by the following Parameters (size, d). Where size is the total size of the String, and d represents precision. E.g To store a Number like 1234.567, you will set the Datatype to DOUBLE(7, 3) where 7 is the total number of digits and 3 is the number of digits to follow the decimal point.

FLOAT and DOUBLE, both represent floating point numbers. A FLOAT is for single-precision, while a DOUBLE is for double-precision numbers. A precision from 0 to 23 results in a 4-byte single-precision FLOAT column. A precision from 24 to 53 results in an 8-byte double-precision DOUBLE column. FLOAT is accurate to approximately 7 decimal places, and DOUBLE upto 14.

Decimal’s declaration and functioning is similar to Double. But there is one big difference between floating point values and decimal (numeric) values. We use DECIMAL data type to store exact numeric values, where we do not want precision but exact and accurate values. A Decimal type can store a Maximum of 65 Digits, with 30 digits after decimal point.

So, for the most accurate and precise value, Decimal would be the best option.

Answer 3

Unless you are storing decimal data (i.e. currency), you should use a standard floating point type (FLOAT or DOUBLE). DECIMAL is a fixed point type, so can overflow when computing things like SUM, and will be ridiculously inaccurate for LOG10.

There is nothing "less precise" about binary floating point types, in fact, they will be much more accurate (and faster) for your needs. Go with DOUBLE.

Answer 4

Put it simply, Float and double are not as precise as decimal. decimal is recommended for money related number input.(currency and salary). Another point need to point out is: Do NOT compare float number using "=","<>", because float numbers are not precise.

Answer 5

Linger: The website you mention and quote has IMO some imprecise info that made me confused. In the docs I read that when you declare a float or a double, the decimal point is in fact NOT included in the number. So it is not the number of chars in a string but all digits used.

Compare the docs: "DOUBLE PRECISION(M,D).. Here, “(M,D)” means than values can be stored with up to M digits in total, of which D digits may be after the decimal point. For example, a column defined as FLOAT(7,4) will look like -999.9999 when displayed" http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/floating-point-types.html

Also the nomenclature in misleading - acc to docs: M is 'precision' and D is 'scale', whereas the website takes 'scale' for 'precision'.

Thought it would be useful in case sb like me was trying to get a picture. Correct me if I'm wrong, hope I haven't read some outdated docs:)

Answer 6

Float and Double are Floating point data types, which means that the numbers they store can be precise up to a certain number of digits only. For example for a table with a column of float type if you store 7.6543219 it will be stored as 7.65432. Similarly the Double data type approximates values but it has more precision than Float.

When creating a table with a column of Decimal data type, you specify the total number of digits and number of digits after decimal to store, and if the number you store is within the range you specified it will be stored exactly.

When you want to store exact values, Decimal is the way to go, it is what is known as a fixed data type.