I've noticed that there's no unsigned data types in ingres sql. This is
a problem for us as we need to allow access to a table usign unsigned
64-bit integers generated from afar (an authentication agent)...The
current solution is to base64 encode the 8byte values, producing 11byte
varchars that can at least be stored, compared etc. safely. The further
I go with this solution however the less I like it as I need to do quite
a bit of base64 encoding and decoding in python, where previouslt I
could do inserts etc with no fear of overflowing...

ie. I'm using the python dbi driver to execute strings containing CRUD
operations like

INSERT into table (id) values (someNumberGreaterThan2TothePowerOf63)

will produce an error as someNumberGreaterThan2TothePowerOf63 is in
string form and will be out of range.

As this is the index to the table, I can't use the binary types.

Any ideas?

Morgan

At 5:30 PM +0100 9/8/2005, morgan brickley wrote:
The SQL Standard doesn't allow for unsigned numeric types.

You can however take your unsigned number and send it to Ingres as if it
were signed. E.g. 2703443303 (0xa1234567) can be sent as -1591523993.
It's the same bit-pattern, just ascii-ized differently.

Karl

morgan brickley wrote:
Wouldn't a DECIMAL(19,0) suffice?

Emiliano

"Karl & Betty Schendel" <schendel (AT) kbcomputer (DOT) com> wrote

integers generated from afar (an authentication agent)...The current
solution is to base64 encode the 8byte values, producing 11byte varchars
that can at least be stored, compared etc. safely. The further I go with
this solution however the less I like it as I need to do quite a bit of
base64 encoding and decoding in python, where previouslt I could do inserts
etc with no fear of overflowing...
I'd be uncomfortable using a signed type for an unsigned value because it
admits meaningless operations on the data, and worse still, apparently
meaningful operations that are wrong. How about using BYTE(4) or BYTE(8)?
In fact I would guess these types are *exactly* what is needed, since the
value being stored is probably not from a domain in which integer arithmetic
is even defined.

Roy Hann (rhann at rationalcommerce dot com)
Rational Commerce Ltd.
www.rationalcommerce.com
"Ingres development, tuning, and training experts"

Roy Hann wrote:
Indeed BYTE(8) does fit the bill,

Thanks Roy...