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Re: st: Question about floating point precision
From
Phil Schumm <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: st: Question about floating point precision
Date
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:04:01 -0500
On Mar 30, 2010, at 12:37 AM, Markus Hahn wrote:
----------------------------------
. // why is this code more precise
.
. di %22.18f 1559*26.07/52.14
779.500000000000000000
.
. // than this code
.
. di %22.18f 1559*26.07
4.064313000000000e+04
. di %22.18f 40643.13/52.14
779.499999999999890000
----------------------------------
Why is the code in the first part of my example more precise than
the last part? Is it really more precise or does it only SEEM to be
so? What I would like to know is whether the first part is more
precise (if at all) because it only uses one expression for the
calculation as compared to last part which uses two expressions?
Does the indirect calculation introduce this imprecision?
The difference is due to the order of operations -- remember, / comes
before *. To wit:
. di %21x 1559*26.07/52.14
+1.85c0000000000X+009
. di %21x (1559*26.07)/52.14
+1.85bffffffffffX+009
. di %21x 40643.13/52.14
+1.85bffffffffffX+009
-- Phil
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