Twayne wrote:
In news:[email protected],
Don Daugherty <[email protected]> typed:
On 3/3/2010 1:36 PM, AG wrote:
JOE Conner wrote:
On 3/3/2010 10:52 AM, AG wrote:
11.73 + 7 + 15.75 + 24.68 + 17.5 + 21.18 + 20.65 + 17.85
+ 19.25 + 23.1 + 12.6 + 10.5 + 23.8
TOOLS -> OPTIONS -> OPENOFFICE.ORG CALC -> CALCULATE ->
Right Panel, do you have PRECISION AS SHOWN checked on
one of the machines? Joe Conner, Poulsbo, WA USA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
Joe
Cheers for the rapid response. Neither of our machines
had that option enabled. However, even after enabling the
"precision as shown" the error persists on my partner's
version of Calc. Thanks
AG
From my reading of Help, you wouldn't want that option
enabled anyway since it would tend to result in more
roundoff's. I'm thinking that JOE wasn't recommending it
as a cure but as the possible problem.
I know when messing with Floating Point math in about any program, you
can get results similar to the original one stated here. Excel seems
to use double-precision no matter what you display and usually avoids
this issue but it can still be made to happen even in Excel. I'ts very
easy to duplicate in most development languages too if you aren't
watching your precision.
Apparently, and I don't know this for a fact, Calc only uses the
displayed digits for its math from a couple quick tests I just did.
Somehow it seems to be 4 places of precision for calculations unless
you program it differently.
Personally I haven't encountered such a problem in Calc, but I think
that's because I have a habit of always using at least two positions
more of precision than is necessary, three if they aren't ridiculous
numbers. There is a diminishing point of no return when you for
instance set pi to be 3.14 or 3.14xx or 3.14xxxxx, and so forth.
It's a complex subject for program authors and one that results in
many debates around some circles about which way to do them. Even my
invoices, which need two decimal places of precision, are calculated
on 5 decimal places, but ... use the standard currency formatting of
only two decimal places. No one wants a bill for $133.3333. But when
I'm multiplying $5.35 by 10,013 pcs, the differences between that
result and using only two places amounts to a lot of money at the end
of the year over all the invoices. It comes out more accurate for me
and more accurate for the customer too.
Dunno if that makes any sense; it's the best I can do right now though
so I hope it helps someone out.
HTH,
Twayne`
Hi Twayne
Thanks for your thoughts, most of which I think that I could follow. I
take your point about the float and if this had been replicated on my
machine as well, I would say that you are probably onto something that
would bear further investigation - such as increasing the number of
decimal places. But, with the same list of numbers and the same
programme (albeit a newer version), I could not replicate the problem
... even though we calibrated the settings to match across the
machines. As I said in my reply to Harold - we are stumped and I have
begun to wonder if it may be a hardware issue to do with the system
clock (her machine also loses time, which reinforces my suspicions).
Without getting into too much detail, I am going to have to resurrect an
older machine, ensure that it still works and do an installation and
then test it on there. If I can eradicate the problem on the
resurrected box, then it just means doing the full installation so she
can dual boot and all of the rest of her preferred settings and write it
off as a crap build on her current machine, but if I can't eradicate the
problem ... . But one step at a time. If the ideas/ suggestions here
dry up, then I'll bite the bullet and see if I can get another machine
up and running and migrate her to that.
Thanks for your ideas.
AG
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
