Okay, I went to University for a BS in Computer Science, so I understand the idea behind floating point representation (and single and double precision, and underflow errors).

But I am finding it hard to believe that Perl can't represent 0.98. So I did a little test. The DB field is set to string and it is literally ".98". I can pull it from the DB and when I go to display it, I make sure it is displayed as a numerical value and not a string (<%=$target * 1%>).

If I leave the * 1 out, it shows the string as it is in the DB ".98". If I put the * 1 in, it shows the value "0.98".

Is Perl doing some magic and not treating ".98" as a float when it needs to computer it with an integer? I figured I would try * 0.5 instead of * 1. Guess what, I get "0.49".

Is Perl doing that much magic, or can it represent 0.98 as a single or double float?

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Filthy Floats by THuG
in thread Filthy Floats by THuG

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