I have a strange problem: There is a price in a JSON column in a table and the following statements give different results while they should give the same thing:
CAST(COALESCE(JSON_EXTRACT(item.price_details, "$.shipping.price"), 0) AS FLOAT) AS shippricecoalfloat
COALESCE(CAST(JSON_EXTRACT(item.price_details, "$.shipping.price") AS FLOAT), 0) AS shippricefloatcoal
Just to check I also added a JSON_EXTRACT(item.price_details, "$.shipping.price") AS shipprice
Result:
MariaDB version: mariadb Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.3.31-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2
DB Fiddle (I couldn’t use the same MariaDB version but it behaves the same anyways apparently)
2
Answers
I believe this is "the solution" for your question:
I will try to explain how I see it…
First thing to know is: "COALESCE() has the same data type as the argument."
This
COALESCE(JSON_EXTRACT(price_details, "$.shipping.price"), 0) as coal
returns "0.8648" but as a string(varchar) so it returns ‘"0.8648"’This
CAST(JSON_EXTRACT(price_details, "$.shipping.price") AS FLOAT) as caast
returns 0.8648 so no problems there…This
select cast('"0.8648"' as float)
returns 0 which is the same as your result…You can not cast a value with double quotes in it to a float.
You will get a result when you coalesce float value and 0 equal to that float value.
I believe this explains it ?
DEMO
Maybe as addition to this I should ask/say isn’t this "098" same as this ‘098’ ?
You’re using the wrong JSON function.
JSON_EXTRACT()
returns a JSON Object found at that path. That’s why in your fiddle you still see double quotes.You want to return a scalar value from a specific path. So, use
JSON_VALUE()
Also, part of the "mess" with datatypes is caused by your JSON storing some values as strings with double quotes, and some as numeric values. I strongly recommend not enclosing numeric values in double quotes in your JSON.
https://dbfiddle.uk/?rdbms=mariadb_10.6&fiddle=d67fa297a5cc4248a06750d71581c022