Should I quote numbers in SQL?

Question

I remember reading about quoting stuff when doing a SQL query and that when you quote something, it becomes a string. I also read that numbers should not be quoted. Now, I c

Answer 1

Here's an example, where quoting would produce inconsistent results (in MySQL):

select 1 < 1.0;      // returns 0

select '1' < '1.0';  // returns 1

That's because the second comparison is performed using the current string collation rather than numerically.

It's better not to quote numbers, since that would just be an extra unnecessary step for the database to convert the string literal into a numeric value for comparison and could alter the meaning of comparisons.