yes, MAJOR goof on my part. My brain cells were not firing quite right :(
For those really interested, here are some resources:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~cs354-1/cs354/karen.notes/reps.flpt.html
http://cch.loria.fr/documentation/IEEE754/ACM/goldberg.pdf
[snip]
Floating points numbers are accurate but not precise.
OK, now this one beats me... what's the difference between accurate
and exact ? I thought both mean something like correct, but precise
refers to some action and accurate applies to a situation or
description...
I'm actually curios
Csaba Nagy wrote:
[snip]
Floating points numbers are accurate but not precise.
OK, now this one beats me... what's the difference between accurate
and exact ? I thought both mean something like correct, but
precise refers to some action and accurate applies to a situation or
I think the crucial point is that the common IEEE floating point
formats are unable to store an EXACT representation of common
decimal fractions (such as .1) -- they can only store an
APPROXIMATION.
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Csaba Nagy wrote:
[snip]
Floating points numbers are
On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 18:30:56 +0100,
Csaba Nagy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[snip]
Floating points numbers are accurate but not precise.
OK, now this one beats me... what's the difference between accurate
and exact ? I thought both mean something like correct, but precise
refers to some
Lets start with an agreed upon expert, Knuth.
The art of computer programming. Vol2,Seminumerical Algorithms.Ed2.
pg682: Precision: The number of digits in a representation.
pg212: Section: Accuracy of floating point numbers.
A rough (but reasonably useful) way to express the behavior of
floating
Otto Hirr [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Most notably, the IEEE rep, either single or double, most certainly
has the ability to store the EXACT value for 0.1.
Oh really?
regards, tom lane
---(end of broadcast)---
TIP 5: don't
No, the IEEE formats can not store .1 exactly. How close it
comes depends on the rest of the number. For single and
double precision, respectively, the IEEE representations fall
at about:
0.10001490116119384765625
0.155511151231257827021181583404541015625
Libraries must do
