Marc Vandemeulebroecke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked:
is there a sensible explanation for the following behaviour?
> seq(0.6, 0.9, by=0.1) == 0.8
[1] FALSE FALSE TRUE FALSE
> seq(0.7, 0.9, by=0.1) == 0.8
[1] FALSE FALSE FALSE
Yes. It's called "floating-point arithmetic". The problem is that
only computers using decimal floating-point arithmetic can represent
0.1 exactly; computers using binary floating-point can only represent
numbers of the form (whole number) * (power of 2) {plus other stuff you
probably don't want to know about, like NaNs, which aren't relevant here}.
Let's see what you got:
> seq(0.6, 0.9, by=0.1) - 0.8
[1] -0.2 -0.1 0.0 0.1
> seq(0.7, 0.9, by=0.1) - 0.8
[1] -1.000000e-01 -1.110223e-16 1.000000e-01
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This difference isn't 0; it's about one unit in the last place.
The best way to work around this is only to use by=x when x is a
whole number times a power of two. For example,
> seq(6, 9, by=1)*0.1 == 0.8
[1] FALSE FALSE TRUE FALSE
> seq(7, 9, by=1)*0.1 == 0.8
[1] FALSE TRUE FALSE
This is the reason why DO-loops with REAL control variables are
deprecated in Fortran 90; they often give you very nasty surprises.
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