title: How should I insert decimal values via cqlsh (DecimalSerializer.deserialize error when attempting)?
body: <p>In cqlsh I'm trying to insert a record with: </p>
  
  <pre><code>INSERT INTO data 
  (order_id,order_ts,transaction_id,transaction_discount,transaction_qty,
  transaction_total,
  product_category,product_profit,product_upc,product_name,product_price,
  product_distributor,
  store_id,store_name,store_state,store_region,id) 
  
  values ('YBC8RWE18',1368438171000,'LQKLVVI4E', 0, 1, 140.72, 
  'Office Supplies', 12.42, 
  'YT8899H3357', 'Casio USB Model FX-9860GII', 140.72, 'QR0', '2YOYWMR28Q', 
  'BigLots', 'AZ', 
  'Southwest', 2259a88e-b62d-4625-a86e-b86d77418a34 );
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Looks fine, but I'm getting a number exception: </p>
  
  <pre><code>Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: Zero length BigInteger
      at java.math.BigInteger.&lt;init&gt;(BigInteger.java:190)
      at org.apache.cassandra.serializers.DecimalSerializer.deserialize(DecimalSerializer.java:41)
      at org.apache.cassandra.serializers.DecimalSerializer.deserialize(DecimalSerializer.java:26)
      at org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.AbstractType.compose(AbstractType.java:142)
      at org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.DecimalType.compare(DecimalType.java:46)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Looks like <code>DecimalSerializer.deserialize</code> is the real issue here. If I try to surround the decimals in quotes (worth a shot, I thought) I get: </p>
  
  <p><code>Bad Request: Invalid STRING constant (140.72) for product_price of type decimal</code></p>
  
  <p>So that didn't help. What do I need to do to insert a decimal? Should I post up the COLUMNFAMILY def? </p>
  
  <p>Here's the DESCRIBE TABLE: </p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE TABLE data (
    id uuid,
    order_id text,
    order_ts timestamp,
    product_category text,
    product_distributor text,
    product_name text,
    product_price decimal,
    product_profit decimal,
    product_upc text,
    store_id text,
    store_name text,
    store_region text,
    store_state text,
    transaction_discount decimal, 
    transaction_id text,
    transaction_qty int,
    transaction_total decimal,
    PRIMARY KEY (id)
  )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If I take off the quotes around 140.72 I get: <code>Request did not complete within rpc_timeout.</code> and the logs show the <code>deserialize</code> error. If I try to just insert a few columns it's fine -- until I try to insert the product_price field.</p>