Hi. On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 12:48:45PM -0500, Phil Steitz (JIRA) wrote: > > [ > https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MATH-475?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12982118#action_12982118 > ] > > Phil Steitz edited comment on MATH-475 at 1/15/11 12:48 PM: > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Very interesting example. How do you come up with this stuff, Sebb? :) > > I tend to agree with Gilles' view that if if a and b are not distinguishable > as doubles, we don't really have any confidence in the value of abs(a - b), > so the short-circuit in the current code is better. I would say just update > the javadoc to make say something like > > "Returns true if the values are indistinguishable as doubles or the > difference between them is within the range of allowed error (inclusive)." > > was (Author: psteitz): > Very interesting example. How do you come up with this stuff, Sebb? :) > > I tend to agree with Gilles' view that if if a and b are not distinguishable > as doubles, we don't really have any confidence in the value of abs(a - b), > so the short-circuit in the current code is better. I would say just update > the javadoc to make say something like > > "Returns true if there is no double value strictly between the arguments or > the difference between them is within the range of allowed error (inclusive)."
Just to be sure that we agree on the semantics of "equals": The latter description ("there is no double value strictly between the arguments") seems more representative of the code. Indeed, 2 successive floating point numbers _are_ distinguishable, but "equals" will nevertheless return true on the ground that any real number within the interval could be mapped to either of the two floating point numbers. Gilles --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org