Rails 3 Float or decimal for GPS coordinates

Question

I need to store GPS coordinates in a database. I\'ve heard that floats are less accurate than decimals. Is that true? If so, what reason is there to ever use floats?

Answer 1

If you want 100% accuracy with your decimals, then multiply by 10**n(where n is your desired precision), and store as integer.

Float objects represent inexact real numbers using the native architecture's double-precision floating point representation.

See:

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Float.html