Ask yourself: if someone asked you to write down pi times 10^20, what would you do? How many decimal digits would you keep? Any answer would be arbitrary - you might as well just store the number in scientific notation. For all you know the next thing they're going to do is multiply the number by 10x^100.
That's o. 10x^20 . Then they come along later - <. - and say 'now tell me the integer part', and you have to admit that you chose not to save it all. It's a different story if they tell you up front that they want the integer part of pi times 10^20. That's <....@o. 10x^20 . You know when you calculate o. 10x^20 that it is not required to arbitrary precision, that in fact only the integer part is needed, so you can save that part accurately. Henry Rich On 12/15/2010 4:20 AM, Robert Goudie wrote: > I would like to understand (in English!) the role @ plays in Roger Hui's > extended precision arithmetic example of Pi: > > > > <....@o.10x^20 > > 314159265358979323846 > > > > whereas if @ is left out the output format is in scientific notation. > > > > <.o.10x^20 > > 3.14159e20 > > > > Is this binding Pi Times to a floor / integer representation? > > > > Thanks > > Rob > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
