Should you choose the MONEY or DECIMAL(x,y) datatypes in SQL Server?

Question

I\'m curious as to whether or not there is a real difference between the money datatype and something like decimal(19,4) (which is what money uses

Answer 1

You shouldn't use money when you need to do multiplications / divisions on the value. Money is stored in the same way an integer is stored, whereas decimal is stored as a decimal point and decimal digits. This means that money will drop accuracy in most cases, while decimal will only do so when converted back to its original scale. Money is fixed point, so its scale doesn't change during calculations. However because it is fixed point when it gets printed as a decimal string (as opposed to as a fixed position in a base 2 string), values up to the scale of 4 are represented exactly. So for addition and subtraction, money is fine.

A decimal is represented in base 10 internally, and thus the position of the decimal point is also based on the base 10 number. Which makes its fractional part represent its value exactly, just like with money. The difference is that intermediate values of decimal can maintain precision up to 38 digits.

With a floating point number, the value is stored in binary as if it were an integer, and the decimal (or binary, ahem) point's position is relative to the bits representing the number. Because it is a binary decimal point, base 10 numbers lose precision right after the decimal point. 1/5th, or 0.2, cannot be represented precisely in this way. Neither money nor decimal suffer from this limitation.

It is easy enough to convert money to decimal, perform the calculations, and then store the resulting value back into a money field or variable.

From my POV, I want stuff that happens to numbers to just happen without having to give too much thought to them. If all calculations are going to get converted to decimal, then to me I'd just want to use decimal. I'd save the money field for display purposes.

Size-wise I don't see enough of a difference to change my mind. Money takes 4 - 8 bytes, whereas decimal can be 5, 9, 13, and 17. The 9 bytes can cover the entire range that the 8 bytes of money can. Index-wise (comparing and searching should be comparable).