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Re: Floats [message #47985 is a reply to message #47854]

Thu, 09 March 2006 03:10

James Kuyper
Messages: 425
Registered: March 2000

Senior Member

Mark Hadfield wrote:
> Paul Van Delst wrote:
>> Sheldon wrote:
>>>
>>> Here is a silly question: Can I define a float array and control how
>>> many decimal places are kept? For example, I want all values to only
>>> have an accuracy to the nearest 100th (20.15 and not 20.154983445).
>>> Kind of like in printing, you know, the f5.2 print definition, but only
>>> for variables and arrrays.
>>
>> May I ask why? Usually this sort of thing is required for printing, but
>> not for regular old storage of numbers.
>
> Currency?

If you require exact results in cents, you shouldn't usea float number
representing the number of dollars, you should use a long number
representing the number of cents. You'll need to use a floating point
type for intermediate calculations if you're doing things like
computing compound interest. Keep in mind that FLOAT usually doesn't
have enough precision for such calculations: use DOUBLE instead.
However, if you want to display a long series of numbers, and print a
correct total for the displayed numbers, you'd better use an integer
type.
There are languages which provide direct support for fixed-point types.
They use an underlying integer type to represent a number with a fixed
number of digits after the decimal point. IDL isn't one of those
languages.

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[Message index]

		floats from strings... duh! By: pjclinch on Fri, 26 May 1995 00:00
		Re: floats from strings... duh! By: velt on Wed, 31 May 1995 00:00
		Re: floats from strings... duh! By: rarback on Tue, 30 May 1995 00:00
		Re: floats from strings... duh! By: sterner on Tue, 30 May 1995 00:00
		Re: Floats By: David Fanning on Wed, 08 March 2006 18:42
		Re: Floats By: Kenneth P. Bowman on Thu, 09 March 2006 05:11
		Re: Floats By: Kenneth P. Bowman on Wed, 08 March 2006 18:24
		Re: Floats By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Wed, 08 March 2006 16:33
		Re: Floats By: Andrew Cool on Thu, 09 March 2006 15:16
		Re: Floats By: David Fanning on Wed, 08 March 2006 16:19
		Re: Floats By: Mark Hadfield on Wed, 08 March 2006 15:59
		Re: Floats By: James Kuyper on Thu, 09 March 2006 03:10
		Re: Floats By: Paul Van Delst[1] on Wed, 08 March 2006 13:54
		Re: Floats By: Liberum on Wed, 08 March 2006 13:42
		Re: Floats By: Liberum on Wed, 08 March 2006 13:42
		Re: Floats By: Mark Hadfield on Wed, 08 March 2006 13:06
		Re: Floats By: David Fanning on Wed, 08 March 2006 13:00

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