How can the floating point problem be avoided without using NUMERIC? What is an alternative approach with the INT type?

Floating point issues arise due to the limited precision of representing fractional numbers in float or double types. To avoid rounding errors without using the NUMERIC type (which provides exact fixed-point arithmetic), a common approach is to use integer types (INT).

The idea is to store values in minimal units, for example, instead of storing 12.34, store 1234 (multiplied by 100). Then, all operations are performed with integers, which eliminates rounding errors typical of float.

Example in Go:

package main
import "fmt"

func main() {
    // Store money in kopecks (integer)
    var priceCents int = 1234 // 12.34 rubles

    // Add 0.66 rubles (66 kopecks)
    priceCents += 66

    fmt.Printf("Price: %d.%02d rubles\n", priceCents/100, priceCents%100)
}

This approach is widely used in financial applications where accuracy and the absence of rounding errors are important.