Mercurial > emacs
changeset 77258:2ee280510518
(Floats): Mention that when non-decimal floats are entered, only
approximations are stored.
| author | Jay Belanger <jay.p.belanger@gmail.com> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:56:26 +0000 |
| parents | 429f941a58b7 |
| children | e1cbde058229 |
| files | man/calc.texi |
| diffstat | 1 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) [+] |
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--- a/man/calc.texi Mon Apr 16 02:30:04 2007 +0000 +++ b/man/calc.texi Mon Apr 16 02:56:26 2007 +0000 @@ -10632,16 +10632,19 @@ way. While floats are always @emph{stored} in decimal, they can be entered -and displayed in any radix just like integers and fractions. The -notation @samp{@var{radix}#@var{ddd}.@var{ddd}} is a floating-point -number whose digits are in the specified radix. Note that the @samp{.} -is more aptly referred to as a ``radix point'' than as a decimal -point in this case. The number @samp{8#123.4567} is defined as -@samp{8#1234567 * 8^-4}. If the radix is 14 or less, you can use -@samp{e} notation to write a non-decimal number in scientific notation. -The exponent is written in decimal, and is considered to be a power -of the radix: @samp{8#1234567e-4}. If the radix is 15 or above, the -letter @samp{e} is a digit, so scientific notation must be written +and displayed in any radix just like integers and fractions. Since a +float that is entered in a radix other that 10 will be converted to +decimal, the number that Calc stores may not be exactly the number that +was entered, it will be the closest decimal approximation given the +current precison. The notation @samp{@var{radix}#@var{ddd}.@var{ddd}} +is a floating-point number whose digits are in the specified radix. +Note that the @samp{.} is more aptly referred to as a ``radix point'' +than as a decimal point in this case. The number @samp{8#123.4567} is +defined as @samp{8#1234567 * 8^-4}. If the radix is 14 or less, you can +use @samp{e} notation to write a non-decimal number in scientific +notation. The exponent is written in decimal, and is considered to be a +power of the radix: @samp{8#1234567e-4}. If the radix is 15 or above, +the letter @samp{e} is a digit, so scientific notation must be written out, e.g., @samp{16#123.4567*16^2}. The first two exercises of the Modes Tutorial explore some of the properties of non-decimal floats.