SQL REAL Vs FLOAT Datatype

The floating-point numeric format is used by SQL Server's FLOAT and REAL Data Types.

REAL is a single-precision float, whereas FLOAT is a double-precision float.

Floating point numbers, unlike decimal numbers, may store very big or very small numbers.

This trade-off, however, comes at the expense of precision.

Let's take a closer look at them in this tutorial and see what the differences are between float and decimal or numeric data types.

SQL REAL Datatype

The REAL data type is a floating point numeric data type that approximates a number.

Because REAL values are approximate, not all ranges of values can be represented precisely.

FLOAT is the same as REAL.

Example: A Hospital table with a 2 REAL columns we store patient's celsius and fahrenhite value .

CREATE TABLE Hospital  
( 
  Id INT IDENTITY, 
  NameofPatient VARCHAR(100),
  Cel REAL,
  Fahr REAL
);
GO  

INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('Jeeva', 36.7, 96.16);  
INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('Johnson', 37.8, 95.44);  
INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('Jancy', 36.32, 99.166);
 

SELECT * FROM Hospital;

Output: The output of Real datatype is

SQL FLOAT Datatype

There is no fixed decimal point in floating-point numbers.

The decimal point floats, meaning it can occur anywhere in the number. As a result, it is referred to as Floating Point Numbers.

The FLOAT data type is a floating point data type that approximates a number.

Because the FLOAT value is approximate, not all values can be represented precisely.

The scientific notation is used to store the floating-point numbers in binary format.

Scientific notation is a method of expressing extremely big or small numbers. It's written in the format below.

For example, in scientific notation, 650,000,000 is expressed as 6.5 108, where 6.5 is the significand, 10 is the base, and 8 is the exponent.

Example: A table with 2 FLOAT columns.

CREATE TABLE Hospital
( 
  Id INT IDENTITY, 
  PatientName VARCHAR(100),
  CelsiusValue FLOAT,
  FahrenheitValue FLOAT
);


INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('Smithi', 34.2, 97.16);  
INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('Johnson', 36.8, 96.44);  
INSERT INTO Hospital VALUES ('larzon', 37.23, 99.176);

SELECT * FROM Hospital;

Output: The Output of Float datatype is

SQL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL AND FLOAT DATATYPE

The differences between real & float datatypes are discussed in below table:-