title: Why is there no BigDecimal.setPrecision() method?
body: <p>Why is there a <code>BigDecimal.setScale()</code> method which sets the decimals to some value and no <code>MathContext.setScale()</code> method but only a constructor <code>MathContext(precision)</code> or other way around why is there no <code>BigDecimal.setPrecision()</code> method?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:
  There is no method <code>MathContext.setPrecision()</code>, only a constructor <code>MathContext(precision)</code>. Edited the text. Sorry for that.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT2:
  I just wanted to understand why there are two ways of approaching a scale / precision setting. Seems there is no real reason to have two of them regarding the answer of Richard Sitze. </p>
  
  <p>See this example which makes clear you can really have strange results playign with precision and scale:</p>
  
  <pre><code>MathContext mc = new MathContext(2);
  BigDecimal test = new BigDecimal("100.234", mc);
  System.out.println("Scale: " + test.scale() + ", value: " + test);
  test.setScale(6);
  System.out.println("Scale: " + test.scale() + ", value: " + test);
  test = test.add(new BigDecimal("100"));
  System.out.println("Scale: " + test.scale() + ", value: " + test);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Results in:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Scale: -1, value: 1.0E+2
  Scale: -1, value: 1.0E+2
  Scale: 0, value: 200
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The results are correct regarding the settings but when I set the scale to 6 I expect a warning / hint / exception which says that the precision settings do not allow a scale of 6.</p>