# Decimal item gets truncated at DB-storage time **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 13, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083 "2010-03-13T04:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RichardOnRails)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083/1 "2010-03-13T04:45:27Z")
Hi All, I created a new Expense item. In particular, the value I entered in the Amount field was 14.99. In the scaffold invocation for this field, I declared its type to be Decimal. The log for the creation of this expense record shows “amount”=\>“14.99” But log for the SQL statement shows: Create (16.0ms) [0m [0mINSERT INTO `expenses` (`purpose`, `by`, `updated_at`, `date`, `type`, `amount`, `vendor`, `created_at`) VALUES(‘fun’, ‘RLM’, ‘2010-03-12 22:11:24’, ‘2010-03-12’, NULL, 14, ‘Ringling Bros’, ‘2010-03-12 22:11:24’) So the amount has been converted to an integer with the decimal portion of the input truncated. What’s the best way to resolve this problem? Thanks in Advance, Richard ---
**Author:** ![RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RichardOnRails)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083/2 "2010-03-13T05:05:56Z")
On Fri, 2010-03-12 at 19:44 -0800, RichardOnRails wrote: > Create (16.0ms) [0m [0mINSERT INTO `expenses` (`purpose`, `by`, > `updated_at`, `date`, `type`, `amount`, `vendor`, `created_at`) > VALUES(‘fun’, ‘RLM’, ‘2010-03-12 22:11:24’, ‘2010-03-12’, NULL, 14, > ‘Ringling Bros’, ‘2010-03-12 22:11:24’) > So the amount has been converted to an integer with the decimal > portion of the input truncated. > > What’s the best way to resolve this problem? > > Thanks in Advance, * * * check the sql db and see how the column is defined… check db/schema.rb and see how the column is defined… Craig – This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ---
**Author:** ![RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RichardOnRails)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 6:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083/3 "2010-03-13T06:36:03Z")
Hi Craig, Thanks for responding. sql.db There doesn’t appear to be such a critter in my project, although it was created with script/scaffold db\schema.db create\_table “expenses”, :force =\> true do |t| [snip] t.integer “amount”, :limit =\> 10, :precision =\> 10, :scale =\> 0 But just before I logged in right now, the fundamental cause of my problem struck me: When I declared expense:decimal in the scaffold, I didn’t declare :scale=\>10, :precision=\>2, which is what I want. So there’s a new question, I think: - Can I declare successive migrations where I drop column and then add column, or - can I just add those attributes to the column? I don’t care about the any data in there at the moment: it’s all toy data for testing. I look forward to your additional thoughts. Best wishes, Richard ---
**Author:** ![RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RichardOnRails)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083/4 "2010-03-13T07:32:14Z")
On Fri, 2010-03-12 at 21:34 -0800, RichardOnRails wrote: > ``` > [snip] > > ``` > > - can I just add those attributes to the column? > > I don’t care about the any data in there at the moment: it’s all toy > data for testing. > > I look forward to your additional thoughts. * * * 1 - When I said SQL DB, I meant the actual SQL Database that you are using. i.e. MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, etc. Do you know how to look at your database? 2 - Get familiar with Rails API… ``` http://api.rubyonrails.org/ It has answers to so many things that you can look up for reference ``` and in this case, you probably want to find ActiveRecord::Migrations and you will find that yes, you can drop/add columns and you can change columns via migrations. Craig – This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. ---
**Author:** ![RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@RichardOnRails](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/RichardOnRails)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/decimal-item-gets-truncated-at-db-storage-time/185083/5 "2010-03-13T18:27:42Z")
Thanks, again, profusely for your response. \< Do you know how to look at your database? mysql\> describe expenses; ±-----------±-------------- | Field | Type ±-----------±-------------- | amount | decimal(10,0) > > Can I declare successive migrations where I drop column … > > Get familiar with Rails API… [http://api.rubyonrails.org/](http://api.rubyonrails.org/) Thanks for that API. Actually, I’ve had a tab open on > **[ActionView::Helpers::FormOptionsHelper](https://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/FormOptionsHelper.html)** > > Provides a number of methods for turning different kinds of containers into a set of option tags. while trying to get a control with drop-down-selection coded … but that’s for another day. > It has answers to so many things that you will find that yes, > you can drop/add columns and you can change columns via migrations. Thank goodness for that! But I wasn’t able to find “drop column” and resorted to [http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/kern-rails-migrations.html](http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/kern-rails-migrations.html) to find this list: 13 remove\_column :albums, :year 14 rename\_column :albums, :year\_int, :year 15 change\_column :albums, :year, :integer, :limit =\> 4, :null =\> false which gave me the answer I really wanted: #15 Bottom line: you’re a great resource. You pointed me in the right directions and I got to Nirvana! Thanks again, Craig, very much, Richard