swelham

swelham

Ecto returning Decimal for MyXQL where it returns an integer for Postgres

We’re in the process of moving our codebase from Postgres to MySQL (using PlanetScale) and we’re noticing a number of our aggregate queries are now trying to calculate using the Decimal<> type, instead of integers.

For example, the following query treats the column types differently depending on which adapter we’re using.

SomeTable
|> select([t], sum(t.int_col_one) - sum(i.int_col_two))
|> Repo.one()

Using Postgres this will subtract two integers.

Using MySQL (using MyXQL) it will attempt to subtract from a decimal.

Error thrown from the query

bad argument in arithmetic expression: Decimal.new("7401") - 7401

:erlang.-(Decimal.new("7401"), 7401)

We have also observed sum and avg aggregates also return decimal types now (all columns are integers) where as previously we would get an integer back when using Postgres.

I haven’t found much info on this so any pointers or solutions would be appreciated.

First Post!

sbuttgereit

sbuttgereit

This appears to be documented behavior of the sum and avg aggregates in MySQL:

The SUM() and AVG() functions return a DECIMAL value for exact-value arguments (integer or DECIMAL), and a DOUBLE value for approximate-value arguments (FLOAT or DOUBLE).

Having survived many data migration projects my best advice is that different database vendors do similar things differently: never take for granted that similar operations are in fact the same operation across database products.

Most Liked

LostKobrakai

LostKobrakai

Yeah, even postgres returns a numeric for sum(bigint) -> numeric vs. sum(integer) -> bigint.

I also want to explicitly highlight: this is not ectos doing. Ecto just builds a query for the database to execute and transform any data getting back from the db. It’s not meant to abstract any differences between databases. It just allows you to work with different databases using the same tools.

Where Next?

Popular in Questions Top

vonH
In asking this question I am more interested about the expressiveness of the language itself and less concerned about the availability of...
New
Emily
I have VueJS GUIs with the project generated using Webpack. I have Elixir modules that will need to be used by the VueJS GUIs. I forese...
New
lanycrost
Hi everyone! I need implement if…else if…else condition from my elixir code, and anymore of this control flow structures not work proper...
New
ashish173
I am using Ecto timestamps with postgres, I can see the timestamps() use the :naive_dateime but for my use case I wanted to store the ti...
New
nsuchy
Hi. I’ve noticed that Windows Powershell has it’s own IEX command and you cannot access Elixir’s IEX due to the conflict. This isn’t a cr...
New
belgoros
I’m not a pro in using Regex and can’t figure out why the following behaviour happens, especially if we take into account the difference ...
New
svb
Hi! Currently I want to submit a form by pressing the Enter key. However, since my input field is of type “textarea” this is just adds a...
New

Other popular topics Top

joaquinalcerro
Hi there, I am working with Ecto-Postgresql and I need to call all of the records from a specific table but the table has 40,000 records...
New
ashish173
I am using Ecto timestamps with postgres, I can see the timestamps() use the :naive_dateime but for my use case I wanted to store the ti...
New
dokuzbir
I want to highlight html closing tags when i click a html tag. That works in .html files but doesnt work for html.eex templates. How can...
New
chrismccord
Phoenix 1.4.0 released Phoenix 1.4 is out! This release ships with exciting new features, most notably with HTTP2 support, improved deve...
688 31586 112
New
axelson
This post is a wiki (feel free to hit the edit button near the bottom right of this post to add your own changes!) This post collects co...
239 49266 226
New
jason.o
In the code below, if the create action is not set to accept “extra_key” as an input, it errors out with a message shown above. Is there ...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement