Tag Archives: floating point precision

Float Precision Revisited: Nine Digit Float Portability

Posted on February 7, 2013 by brucedawson

Last year I pointed out that float variables can be converted to text and then back to the same binary value using printf(“%1.8e”). You can also use %.9g for more compact results. I also supplied a test program that used … Continue reading →

Posted in Floating Point | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Floating-point complexities

Posted on April 5, 2012 by brucedawson

Binary floating-point math is complex and subtle. I’ve collected here a few of my favorite oddball facts about IEEE floating-point math, based on the articles so far in my floating-point series. The focus in this list is on float but … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Intermediate Floating-Point Precision

Posted on March 21, 2012 by brucedawson

Riddle me this Batman: how much precision are these calculations evaluated at? If you answered ‘double’ and ‘float’ then you score one point for youthful idealism, but zero points for correctness. The correct answer, for zero-idealism points and forty two … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Programming, Visual Studio | Tagged , , , , , | 47 Comments

Float Precision–From Zero to 100+ Digits

Posted on March 8, 2012 by brucedawson

How much precision does a float have? It depends on the float, and it depends on what you mean by precision. Typical reasonable answers range from 6-9 decimal digits, but it turns out that you can make a case for … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | 52 Comments

Comparing Floating Point Numbers, 2012 Edition

Posted on February 25, 2012 by brucedawson

This post is a more carefully thought out and peer reviewed version of a floating-point comparison article I wrote many years ago. This one gives solid advice and some surprising observations about the tricky subject of comparing floating-point numbers. A … Continue reading →

Posted in AltDevBlogADay, Floating Point, Programming | Tagged , , , , , , | 230 Comments