How can an Oracle NUMBER have a Scale larger than the Precision?

Question

The documentation states: \"Precision can range from 1 to 38. Scale can range from -84 to 127\".

How can the scale be larger than the precision? Shouldn\'t the Scal

Answer 1

The question could be why not ? Try the following SQL.

select cast(0.0001 as number(2,5)) num, 
       to_char(cast(0.0001 as number(2,5))) cnum,
       dump(cast(0.0001 as number(2,5))) dmp
  from dual

What you see is that you can hold small numbers is that sort of structure It might not be required very often, but I'm sure somewhere there is someone who is storing very precise but very small numbers.