dataType: "decimal" gives a string through the api

[jlvdh]

When using dataType: decimal the api seems to return a string instead of a number.

in model.json:

"property1": {
  "type": "number",
  "postgresql": {
    "dataType": "decimal"
  }
"property2": {
  "type": "number"
}

from the api:

"property1": "30.3",
 "property2": 4

[raymondfeng]

Do you see it from REST or node?

[jlvdh]

from the loopback explorer

[raymondfeng]

This is the behavior from the postgresql node.js driver - brianc/node-postgres#353. The main purpose is to avoid loss of decimal data.

[jlvdh]

Thanks, that's clarifying a lot.

However, I'm running in to trouble while using the validatesNumericalityOf when doing a put request changing another property.

validation:

Model.validatesNumericalityOf('property1', {int: false});

Request

PUT /api/model/4

{ "other_property": "other value" }

gives:

"message": "The `model` instance is not valid. Details: `property1` is not a number (value: \"3000\").",

[mirek]

@jlvdh if you don't care about decimal precision or you can guarantee safe precision (21?) you can do something like https://github.com/mirek/node-pg-safe-numbers is doing, but it's global/intrusive on pg, so care must be taken (all other libraries using pg will also use new parser).

[FreakTheMighty]

This confused me as well. Also, it seems a little inconsistent. On a PUT I found that the response was a number. When listing the resource, however, it has been converted to a string.

[ssh24]

Related to #58. Closing this issue. Feel free to reopen if needed.