Roger Bivand wrote:
>
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Yoni Schamroth wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am attempting to query a data frame from a mysql database.
>> One of the variables is a unique identification number ("numeric") 18
>> digits
>> long.
>> I am struggling to retrieve this variable exactly without any rounding.
>
> Read it as a character - a double is a double:
>
>> x <- 6527600583317876352
>> y <- 6527600583317876380
>> all.equal(x,y)
> [1] TRUE
>> storage.mode(x)
> [1] "double"
>
> and why they are equal is a FAQ (only ~16 digits in a double). Integer is
> 4-byte. Since they are IDs, not to be used for math, leave them as
> character strings - which they are, like telephone numbers.
>
Resurrecting this post for a moment, the same issue arose when interfacing R
with a Postgres database using the bigint data type (a signed 64-bit integer
ranging from -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 as of
this writing). While the underlying cause is summarized above, I'd like to
recommend the inclusion of a 64-bit integer data type into the R base. For
performance reasons, I use R to independently generate a unique transaction
ID that is equivalent to the Postgres-generated bigint (with some
consistency checks -- generally bad design, but vastly quicker than
querying the database for the same value). I currently generate a string
representation and pass that to the DBI, though the process is cumbersome
and likely not as efficient as an arithmetic equivalent (particularly when
using a 64-bit processor architecture). Furthermore, there are additional
gyrations that need to occur when querying the database for bigint values.
Do significant practical challenges exist in the implementation of a 64-bit
integer that would outweigh the faster and cleaner compatibility with
database backends?
--
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