postgresql/src
Dean Rasheed 5c62920fa9 Fix corner-case errors and loss of precision in numeric_power().
This fixes a couple of related problems that arise when raising
numbers to very large powers.

Firstly, when raising a negative number to a very large integer power,
the result should be well-defined, but the previous code would only
cope if the exponent was small enough to go through power_var_int().
Otherwise it would throw an internal error, attempting to take the
logarithm of a negative number. Fix this by adding suitable handling
to the general case in power_var() to cope with negative bases,
checking for integer powers there.

Next, when raising a (positive or negative) number whose absolute
value is slightly less than 1 to a very large power, the result should
approach zero as the power is increased. However, in some cases, for
sufficiently large powers, this would lose all precision and return 1
instead of 0. This was due to the way that the local_rscale was being
calculated for the final full-precision calculation:

  local_rscale = rscale + (int) val - ln_dweight + 8

The first two terms on the right hand side are meant to give the
number of significant digits required in the result ("val" being the
estimated result weight). However, this failed to account for the fact
that rscale is clipped to a maximum of NUMERIC_MAX_DISPLAY_SCALE
(1000), and the result weight might be less then -1000, causing their
sum to be negative, leading to a loss of precision. Fix this by
forcing the number of significant digits calculated to be nonnegative.
It's OK for it to be zero (when the result weight is less than -1000),
since the local_rscale value then includes a few extra digits to
ensure an accurate result.

Finally, add additional underflow checks to exp_var() and power_var(),
so that they consistently return zero for cases like this where the
result is indistinguishable from zero. Some paths through this code
already returned zero in such cases, but others were throwing overflow
errors.

Dean Rasheed, reviewed by Yugo Nagata.

Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAEZATCW6Dvq7+3wN3tt5jLj-FyOcUgT5xNoOqce5=6Su0bCR0w@mail.gmail.com
2021-07-31 11:27:02 +01:00
..
backend Fix corner-case errors and loss of precision in numeric_power(). 2021-07-31 11:27:02 +01:00
bin pg_resetxlog: add option to set oldest xid & use by pg_upgrade 2021-07-26 22:38:14 -04:00
common Fix command-line colorization on Windows with VT100-compatible environments 2020-03-02 15:46:24 +09:00
fe_utils Fix incautious handling of possibly-miscoded strings in client code. 2021-06-07 14:15:25 -04:00
include Preserve firing-on state when cloning row triggers to partitions 2021-07-16 13:01:43 -04:00
interfaces Fix range check in ECPG numeric to int conversion 2021-07-30 15:59:10 -04:00
makefiles
pl Fix corner-case uninitialized-variable issues in plpgsql. 2021-07-20 13:01:48 -04:00
port Make printf("%s", NULL) print "(null)" instead of crashing. 2021-07-24 13:41:17 -04:00
template Further tweaking of PG_SYSROOT heuristics for macOS. 2021-01-20 12:07:35 -05:00
test Fix corner-case errors and loss of precision in numeric_power(). 2021-07-31 11:27:02 +01:00
timezone Update time zone data files to tzdata release 2021a. 2021-01-24 16:29:47 -05:00
tools Add fallback implementation for setenv() 2021-06-01 09:27:31 +09:00
tutorial tutorial: land height is "elevation", not "altitude" 2021-03-10 20:25:18 -05:00
.gitignore
DEVELOPERS
Makefile
Makefile.global.in Fix prove_installcheck to use correct paths when used with PGXS 2021-07-01 08:47:04 -04:00
Makefile.shlib
nls-global.mk