Strange behaviour when using floats

[Henrik Skak Pedersen]

Hi,

I have the following very simple code snippet:

line 1: float f;
line 2: f = 100000.99f;

Why is f: 100000.992 after line 2? I would assume it to be 100000.99.

Cheers
Henrik.

[Hans Kesting]

on 16-9-2008, Henrik Skak Pedersen supposed :

Hi,

I have the following very simple code snippet:

line 1: float f;
line 2: f = 100000.99f;

Why is f: 100000.992 after line 2? I would assume it to be 100000.99.

Cheers
Henrik.

See http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/floatingpoint.html

[Henrik Skak Pedersen]

Hi Hans,

Thank you for your reply. So I guess that decimal is my choice then.

Cheers
Henrik.

"Hans Kesting" <ne*********@spamgourmet.comwrote in message
news:uz****************@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

on 16-9-2008, Henrik Skak Pedersen supposed :

>Hi,

I have the following very simple code snippet:

line 1: float f;
line 2: f = 100000.99f;

Why is f: 100000.992 after line 2? I would assume it to be 100000.99.

Cheers
Henrik.

See http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/floatingpoint.html

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Andersson?=]

Henrik Skak Pedersen wrote:

Hi Hans,

Thank you for your reply. So I guess that decimal is my choice then.

Cheers
Henrik.

"Hans Kesting" <ne*********@spamgourmet.comwrote in message
news:uz****************@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>on 16-9-2008, Henrik Skak Pedersen supposed :

>>Hi,

I have the following very simple code snippet:

line 1: float f;
line 2: f = 100000.99f;

Why is f: 100000.992 after line 2? I would assume it to be 100000.99.

Cheers
Henrik.

See http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/floatingpoint.html

You can use a double if you just want better precision, but still want
the performance of a type that is supported by the ALU of the processor.

A decimal still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something
like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

--
Göran Andersson
_____
http://www.guffa.com

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

On Sep 16, 12:49*pm, Göran Andersson <[e-mail]:

You can use a double if you just want better precision, but still want
the performance of a type that is supported by the ALU of the processor.

A decimal still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something
like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

Both double and decimal represent exact values - just different sets
of values. And decimal certainly *can* represent 10000.992 exactly.

Jon

[Peter Duniho]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:22:40 -0700, Jon Skeet [C# MVP] <sk***@pobox.com>
wrote:

>A decimal still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something
like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

Both double and decimal represent exact values - just different sets
of values. And decimal certainly *can* represent 10000.992 exactly.

Or even 100000.99, as seen in the original post. :)

[Henrik Skak Pedersen]

Thank you all for your replies.

"Peter Duniho" <Np*********@nnowslpianmk.comwrote in message
news:op***************@petes-computer.local...

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:22:40 -0700, Jon Skeet [C# MVP] <sk***@pobox.com>
wrote:

>>A decimal still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something
like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

Both double and decimal represent exact values - just different sets
of values. And decimal certainly *can* represent 10000.992 exactly.

Or even 100000.99, as seen in the original post. :)

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Andersson?=]

Jon Skeet [C# MVP] wrote:

On Sep 16, 12:49 pm, Göran Andersson <[e-mail]:

>You can use a double if you just want better precision, but still want
the performance of a type that is supported by the ALU of the processor.

A decimal

Obviously I meant a double.

still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something

>like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

Both double and decimal represent exact values - just different sets
of values.

What do you mean by that? A double is a floating point type, and
approximates most values.

And decimal certainly *can* represent 10000.992 exactly.

A decimal stores 100000.99 as 100000.99, not as 100000.992.

--
Göran Andersson
_____
http://www.guffa.com

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Göran Andersson <gu***@guffa.comwrote:

Jon Skeet [C# MVP] wrote:

On Sep 16, 12:49 pm, Göran Andersson <[e-mail]:

You can use a double if you just want better precision, but still want
the performance of a type that is supported by the ALU of the processor.

A decimal

Obviously I meant a double.

Sorry, it wasn't obvious to me. I thought you really were casting
aspersions on decimal :)

still doesn't represent values exactly, but you get something

like 100000.990000002 rather than 100000.992.

Both double and decimal represent exact values - just different sets
of values.

What do you mean by that? A double is a floating point type, and
approximates most values.

Decimal is a floating point type too - just a floating decimal point
instead of a floating binary point. Both types have a set of numbers
they can represent exactly. You can't represent 1/3 exactly in decimal
any more than you can represent 1/5 exactly in binary.

The reason that decimal "feels" precise whereas binary "feels"
approximate is that humans tend to use a decimal system - we tend to
think that 1/5 is a more "normal" number than 1/3. When you look at it
in a mathematical sense, decimal has more precision and less range than
double, but both are just sets of numbers with conversions and
operations which will approximate the accurate value to the nearest
value in the target set.

And decimal certainly *can* represent 10000.992 exactly.

A decimal stores 100000.99 as 100000.99, not as 100000.992.

Indeed - I didn't check the original post, just yours.

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
Web site: http://www.pobox.com/~skeet
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/jon.skeet
C# in Depth: http://csharpindepth.com