I haven't found a direct answer for this (yet), (see Update below) but it's interesting that if you assign the math to another variable first, then print that variable, the number is printed correctly; for example:

$i = 2;
$j = (1-1/2000)**$i;
print $j;

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The output is:

0.99900025

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It seems that the print function is interpreting the number differently due to the parens. If you input a similar math problem directly into print, but without parens, the number comes out right.

$i = 2;
print 0.9995**$i;

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Output:

0.99900025

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Update: print is only printing what is in the parens because it is treating that part like the complete input to a function, ignoring the exponent part. Adding the blank string in front changes print to list operator mode, printing the entire answer.

To summarize: the two modes of print are:

# function mode
print (your code here);

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And

# list mode
print arg1, arg2, etc; # and/or the . operator

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--Nick

In reply to Re: strange arithmetic by nlwhittle
in thread strange arithmetic by morgon

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