Problem:

You are working on a query where you are trying to convert source data to numeric data type and you get an “Arithmetic overflow error”.

Solution:

Let’s understand this with an example:

Here’s the source data: 132.56000000 and you want to store just 132.56 so write a query that looks like:

cast([source language=”column”][/source] as numeric(3,2)) as destination_column_name

and after you run the query its throws an error “Arithmetic Overflow Error” – so what’s wrong?

The issue is that you incorrectly specified the precision and scale – by writing the query that says numeric(3,2) you are saying I want 3 data places with 2 on the right (after decimal point) which leaves just 1 place for left.

what you need to write is numeric(5,2) – and this will have 2 places on the right and leaves 3 places for left.

so after you run this, it shouldn’t complain about the arithmetic overflow error. you just need to make sure that the precision and scale of the numeric data type is correct.

Conclusion:

In this post, you saw an example of how to correctly use the precision and scale in the numeric data type and that should help you solve the arithmetic overflow errors.