[Zope] DCoracle number conversion question

R. David Murray R. David Murray" <bitz@bitdance.com
Tue, 9 May 2000 03:16:11 -0400 (EDT)


On Tue, 9 May 2000, Christian Sonntag wrote:
> I have some columns with float numbers in oracle (e.g.. values like 1e-50)
> and it seems that dcoracle is translating those values into straight zeros.
> Is there any way to read and display these number in scientific notation?
> Any help would be greatly appreciated,

One of my clients is reporting a similar problem.  They are using
DCOracle in a pure python context as well as a Zope context.  They
report that float data is turned into integers.  The Oracle consultant
took a look and has this to say (they are using Oracle 8i, and I
note that the DCOracle documentation does not mention 8i):

-----------
After analyzing the DCOracle package it appears the specific problem 
lies in how DCOracle uses the Oracle Call Interface(oci) function 
"odescr()".  This function is obsolecent in version 8i of Oracle but was 
present in earlier versions of Oracle.  The function appears to work 
under Oracle 8i, but it must be some wrapper around the 8i functions -- 
it does have some problems.  Two of the function parameters (precision, 
and scale), are supposed to return the size of the number and the number 
of decimals, but this does not happen.

We are not sure if this is a real problem -- since no one else has
reported it -- or if this is an incompatibility with Oracle 8i OCI.
-----------

Can some DCOracle guru comment on this?

--RDM