Division of integers returns 0

Question

I feel like I\'m missing something obvious. I am trying to test out the distribution of random(). Here is the table:

create table test (
  id in         


        

Answer 1

Try this query instead:

select 
       random_int,
       count(random_int) as Count,
       cast( count(random_int) / max(id) as float) as Percent,
       (100.0 * count(random_int) / max(id))::numeric(5,2) as pct
  from test
 group by random_int
 order by random_int;

PostgreSQL has a strong types system. In your case, type is implied by count() function, which returns bigint (or int8) and id column, which is integer.

I would recommend using 100.0 as initial multiplier, that'll cause whole expression to be calculated as numeric and will also provide real percents. You might also want to cast to numeric(5,2) at the end to get rid of too big number.

Answer 2

You should cast before you divide, but also you were missing a subquery to get the total count from the table. Here's the sample.

select 
  random_int,
  count(random_int) as Count,
  cast(count(random_int) as decimal(7,2)) / cast((select count(random_int) from test) as decimal(7,2)) as Percent
from test
group by random_int
order by random_int;