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From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Oleg Ivanov <o15611@gmail.com>
Cc: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
Cc: Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: BUG #19340: Wrong result from CORR() function
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:22:07 -0500
Message-ID: <375068.1764696127@sss.pgh.pa.us> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAH1GMznwE=WGJYCZU1ou9iOmNR87NQFSRdYHqE3=JQ3as4P1hQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <19340-6fb9f6637f562092@postgresql.org>
	<4ab9867066e9545dd1a7e835a480bb0ecbe1a00d.camel@cybertec.at>
	<CAH1GMznwE=WGJYCZU1ou9iOmNR87NQFSRdYHqE3=JQ3as4P1hQ@mail.gmail.com>

Oleg Ivanov <o15611@gmail.com> writes:
> Yes, must be NULL in all the queries I have provided!
> But PostgreSQL curr() returns numbers, wich is incorrect.

Yeah, looks like roundoff error to me.  In your example

SELECT corr( 0.09 , 0.09000001 ) FROM generate_series(1,25) ;

at the end of float8_corr we have

3754            PG_RETURN_FLOAT8(Sxy / sqrt(Sxx * Syy));
(gdb) i locals
transarray = <optimized out>
transvalues = 0x1b96da8
N = 25
Sxx = 3.2869204384208827e-34
Syy = 9.3266240309214617e-33
Sxy = -3.2869204384208827e-34

where ideally those three values would be zero (and we would have
fallen out with a NULL result at the preceding line).

It's fundamentally impossible to guarantee exact results with
floating-point arithmetic, so if you are expecting that you need
to readjust your expectations.  But having said that, it does
seem a bit sad that we can't detect constant-input cases exactly.
I wonder whether it'd be worth carrying additional state to
check that explicitly (instead of assuming that "if (Sxx == 0 ||
Syy == 0)" will catch it).

You might find the previous discussion interesting:

https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/153313051300.1397.9594490737341194671%40wrigleys.postgres...

			regards, tom lane





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