> If I feed numbers that are too big into this IBO generates an
> EIB_ColumnError with the message "Smallint Overflow".

> Essentially the point is that the error is nothing to do with
> smallints The field isn't a smallint its a numeric.

numeric values are stored in integer based storage. As such IBO (and
IB/FB) must translate accordingly. The error message you report is
actually generated by IBO - when it tries to force a given value down
to smallint to pass to the server.

NUMERIC(1-4,x) store in smallint (16bit)
NUMERIC(5-9,x) store in integer (32bit)
NUMERIC(10-18,x) store in int64 (64bit) - prior to IB6 such values
were stored as double precision

So the message is accurate.

hope this explains.

--
Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing