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The proposed solution for encoding decimals does not work with decimal.MaxValue
The proposed solution for handling decimal values (Creating a custom decimal type for Protobuf) does not work for large decimal values. If you use decimal.MaxValue as an example, this will fail with a System.OverflowException on the following line of code:
var units = decimal.ToInt64(value);
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- ID: c2a41d02-3084-c31e-98ed-2bd786c7a301
- Version Independent ID: 31a20696-f326-63c3-77d1-f3cfc0aa589c
- Content: Protobuf scalar data types - gRPC for WCF developers
- Content Source: docs/architecture/grpc-for-wcf-developers/protobuf-data-types.md
- Product: dotnet-architecture
- Technology: grpc
- GitHub Login: @JamesNK
- Microsoft Alias: jamesnk
That's by design for the supplied code.
If you want to exactly store all decimal values then the best method is to convert it to a string in protobuf and parse it back again on the other side.
@JamesNK I'm OK with that but I do feel the tone of the documentation suggests that the example provided is better than using strings, I quote: "There are multiple other algorithms for encoding decimal values as byte strings, but this message is easier to understand than any of them".
I would at minimum, point-out the limitations of the suggested approach, as it is likely that most people would assume that this example works for all decimal values; which it doesn't. Perhaps something along the lines of:
Note: This example will only support the encoding of values with units between -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 and 9,223,372,036,854,775,807, and only to a precision 9 decimal places. The decimal data type in .NET supports a much wider range of values and to a precision of 28 decimal places. If you need to support all possible values, an alternative approach will be required.
