If you compute the expression without intermediate calculations, the entire expression is computed at once:

206.85 * 891.94 * 0.01 = 1844.97789 = 1844.98

The result is a decimal data type dec(38,2) , so the result 1844.97789 is rounded using a scale of 2. The final result is 1844.98.

If you compute the expression with intermediate calculations, the result of the expression might differ.

An expression might require intermediate calculations if the expression contains a user-defined function. For example, a user-defined function might require that the expression is calculated using the following steps:

Step 1. 206.85 * 0.01 = 2.0685 = 2.07
Step 2. 2.07 * 891.94 = 1846.3158 = 1846.32

In Step 1, the Hive engine processes the intermediate calculation. Since the intermediate result is a decimal data type dec(38,2), the intermediate result 2.0685 is rounded using a scale of 2. The resulting value 2.07 is used in the following calculation in Step 2. The result in Step 2 is another decimal data type dec(38,2), so the result in Step 2 is also rounded using a scale of 2. The final result is 1846.32.

Note that the value 1846.32 computed with intermediate calculations differs from the value 1844.98 that is computed without intermediate calculations. The precision loss that occurs during the intermediate calculations skews the return value.