Edit report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52405&edit=1
ID: 52405 Updated by: ahar...@php.net Reported by: chrisbabar at hotmail dot com Summary: Inaccurate Pi calculation Status: Bogus Type: Bug Package: *Math Functions Operating System: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS PHP Version: 5.3.2 New Comment: Sorry, I was being a bit slack: we get enough floating point questions that my first comment's actually a canned answer. :) You're exactly right: it's just that floating point values don't have enough precision to go beyond a certain point -- the float page in the manual says it's usually about 14 decimal digits, which lines up almost exactly with what you've just tested. As for whether PHP should be limited, it's basically a reality of current computing that decimal values are represented as floating point values with limited precision -- fixed point arithmetic would potentially be more accurate, but much, much slower, since you'd no longer be getting any help from the hardware FPU, and for most purposes, 64-bit floating point values are good enough. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-07-22 16:04:05] chrisbabar at hotmail dot com I think I understand what you are saying - however this is essentially the same problem - without any float to string processing: <?php // Outputs bool(true) var_dump(3.14159265358979311599796 === 3.14159265358979323846264); ?> And if this is expected because of the limitations with the precision - should the precision of PHP be limited to 15 decimal places? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-07-22 15:50:43] ahar...@php.net Floating point values have a limited precision. Hence a value might not have the same string representation after any processing. That also includes writing a floating point value in your script and directly printing it without any mathematical operations. If you would like to know more about "floats" and what IEEE 754 is, read this: http://docs.sun.com/source/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html Thank you for your interest in PHP. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2010-07-22 15:44:47] chrisbabar at hotmail dot com Description: ------------ PHP seems to calculate pi incorrectly after 15 decimal places when calling the pi() function. I have used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi as a reference for the correct value of pi. Test script: --------------- <?php ini_set("precision", 24); echo pi(); ?> Expected result: ---------------- 3.14159265358979323846264 Actual result: -------------- 3.14159265358979311599796 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52405&edit=1
