I want to convert a double to a string and only display needed decimals.
So I cannot use
d := 123.4
s := Format('%.2f', [d]);
As it display as the result is 123.40 when I want 123.4.
Here is a table of samples and expected result
|Double|Result as string|
-------------------------
|5 |5 |
|5.1 |5.1 |
|5.12 |5.12 |
|5.123 |5.123 |
You can use the %g format string:
General: The argument must be a floating-point value. The value is converted to the shortest possible decimal string using fixed or
scientific format. The number of significant digits in the resulting
string is given by the precision specifier in the format string; a
default precision of 15 is assumed if no precision specifier is
present. Trailing zeros are removed from the resulting string, and a
decimal point appears only if necessary. The resulting string uses the
fixed-point format if the number of digits to the left of the decimal
point in the value is less than or equal to the specified precision,
and if the value is greater than or equal to 0.00001. Otherwise the
resulting string uses scientific format.
This is not as simple as you think. It all boils down to representability.
Let's consider a simple example of 0.1. That value is not exactly representable in double. This is because double is a binary representation rather than a decimal representation.
A double value is stored in the form s*2^e, where s and e are the significand and exponent respectively, both integers.
Back to 0.1. That value cannot be exactly represented as a binary floating point value. No combination of significand and exponent exist that represent it. Instead the closest representable value will be used:
0.10000 00000 00000 00555 11151 23125 78270 21181 58340 45410 15625
If this comes as a shock I suggest the following references:
Is floating point math broken?
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19957-01/806-3568/ncg_goldberg.html
http://floating-point-gui.de/
So, what to do? An obvious option is to switch to a decimal rather than binary representation. In Delphi that typically means using the Currency type. Depending on your application that might be a good choice, or it might be a terrible choice. If you wish to perform scientific or engineering calculations efficiently, for instance, then a decimal type is not appropriate.
Another option would be to look at how Python handles this. The repr function is meant, where possible, to yield a string with the property that eval(repr(x)) == x. In older versions of Python repr produced very long strings of the form 1.1000000000000001 when in fact 1.1 would suffice. Python adopted an algorithm that finds the shortest decimal expression that represents the floating point value. You could adopt the same approach. The snag is that the algorithm is very complex.
Related
A simple question that turned out to be quite complex:
How do I turn a float to a String in GForth? The desired behavior would look something like this:
1.2345e fToString \ takes 1.2345e from the float stack and pushes (addr n) onto the data stack
After a lot of digging, one of my colleagues found it:
f>str-rdp ( rf +nr +nd +np -- c-addr nr )
https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-html-history/0.6.2/Formatted-numeric-output.html
Convert rf into a string at c-addr nr. The conversion rules and the
meanings of nr +nd np are the same as for f.rdp.
And from f.rdp:
f.rdp ( rf +nr +nd +np – )
https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/gforth/Docs-html/Simple-numeric-output.html
Print float rf formatted. The total width of the output is nr. For
fixed-point notation, the number of digits after the decimal point is
+nd and the minimum number of significant digits is np. Set-precision has no effect on f.rdp. Fixed-point notation is used if the number of
siginicant digits would be at least np and if the number of digits
before the decimal point would fit. If fixed-point notation is not
used, exponential notation is used, and if that does not fit,
asterisks are printed. We recommend using nr>=7 to avoid the risk of
numbers not fitting at all. We recommend nr>=np+5 to avoid cases where
f.rdp switches to exponential notation because fixed-point notation
would have too few significant digits, yet exponential notation offers
fewer significant digits. We recommend nr>=nd+2, if you want to have
fixed-point notation for some numbers. We recommend np>nr, if you want
to have exponential notation for all numbers.
In humanly readable terms, these functions require a number on the float-stack and three numbers on the data stack.
The first number-parameter tells it how long the string should be, the second one how many decimals you would like and the third tells it the minimum number of decimals (which roughly translates to precision). A lot of implicit math is performed to determine the final String format that is produced, so some tinkering is almost required to make it behave the way you want.
Testing it out (we don't want to rebuild f., but to produce a format that will be accepted as floating-point number by forth to EVALUATE it again, so the 1.2345E0 notation is on purpose):
PI 18 17 17 f>str-rdp type \ 3.14159265358979E0 ok
PI 18 17 17 f.rdp \ 3.14159265358979E0 ok
PI f. \ 3.14159265358979 ok
I couldn't find the exact word for this, so I looked into Gforth sources.
Apparently, you could go with represent word that prints the most significant numbers into supplied buffer, but that's not exactly the final output. represent returns validity and sign flags, as well as the position of decimal point. That word then is used in all variants of floating point printing words (f., fp. fe.).
Probably the easiest way would be to substitute emit with your word (emit is a deferred word), saving data where you need it, use one of available floating pint printing words, and then restoring emit back to original value.
I'd like to hear the preferred solution too...
I'm trying to make a function that rounds a number up to a certain number of significant figures given by the user, for example if the user gives me the number
234.235534 with 5 significant numbers, the function should return 234.24
I think you're looking for the [fs]?printf's %g modifier.
converts floating-point number to decimal or decimal exponent notation
depending on the value and the precision.
where, the precision is defined by:
. followed by integer number or *, or neither that specifies
precision of the conversion. In the case when * is used, the
precision is specified by an additional argument of type int. If the
value of this argument is negative, it is ignored. If neither a number
nor * is used, the precision is taken as zero.
So, you want:
> return ("%.5g"):format(234.235534)
234.24
> return ("%.6g"):format(x)
234.236
I'm not much of a programmer, but I came up with this for my own use after I was disappointed by other rounding functions people recommended in lua. This should do what you asked.
function sigFig(num,figures)
local x=figures - math.ceil(math.log10(math.abs(num)))
return(math.floor(num*10^x+0.5)/10^x)
end
now in terms of significant digits, it won't add additional zeros to a number to signify precision. For example:
sigFig(234.235534,5) will yield 234.24
sigFig(234.0000001,6) will yield 234.0, not 234.000
I'm working on parsing with haskell, I want to parse a timestamp value expressed in such a way
946685561.618847
I have no problem to recognize (parse) it, but my problem is about the type of the result. I think of two situations:
Is there a fractional type in Haskell so that the result can be associated with the fractional value?
If this is not the case then how to store this value, since Int range from -229 to 229 - 1?
There are actually multiple fractional types--there is even a whole Fractional class.
The most commonly used is a Double, which is a double-precision floating point number. You can also use Float which is single precision.
Another alternative is to use the Rational type, which lets you store a number as a ratio of two Integers. (Coincidentally, Integer is an unbounded integral type. Int is the name for the bounded version.)
These types (Double, Float and Rational) are good for storing rational values. If you just want to store a large integral value, use Integer which is unbounded. (That is, it can store arbitrarily sized integers.)
I need to parse floating-point literals in C code using OCaml.
OCaml's float type is 64 bit. I have the string of the literal, its numeric value rounded to 64 bits and its kind (float, double or long double).
The problem are literals with a numeric value bigger than 64 bit:
long double literals
float literals with 'f'-suffix for which double rounding errors would occur if they wouldn't have the suffix.
OCaml's arbitrary-precision module can parse rational numbers from strings like "123/123", but not "123.123", "123e123", "0x1.23p-1" like they might appear in C.
Background: I do value analysis of C programs using CIL.
Double literals of any size and float literals with a numeric value that fits into 64 bit are always correctly represented. By rounding from double- to single-precision I can also reproduce double rounding errors.
I wrote my answer in the form of a blog post
To summarize some of the points here: you could interface strtold() and strtof() from OCaml. For the former, you would have to consider how you are going to store the result it produces, since there only is a point if long double is larger than double on your host architecture. There remains the problem that these functions are buggy in one of the most widely used C library. Very slightly buggy, but buggy for exactly the examples that are going to be of interest if you are doing this to study double rounding.
Another way is to write your own function, starting from another post in the blog you refer to.
Finally, the phrase "Even getting single-precision floats right requires me to parse literals with values bigger than 64 bit" that you use in the comments is still a strange way to put it. The intermediate format(s) in which you can parse the representation of a single-precision float before you round it to single-precision have to be lossless, otherwise there will be double rounding. Double rounding may be more or less difficult to exhibit depending on the precision of the lossy intermediate format, but using 80 bits or 128 bits binary floating-point formats is not going to remove the problem, just make it more subtle. In the simple algorithm that I recommend, the intermediate format is a fraction of two multiprecision integers.
I don't see the question in this question :)
Assuming that you need an ocaml parser for "C float literals" - the answer is - write one yourself, it is not very hard and you will have strict control on the implementation details and what "C float literal" actually means.
Given a double value like 1.00500000274996E-8, how do I convert it to it's non scientific format with a maximum number of digits after the decimal point - in this case with 8 digits it would be 1.00500000?
The conversion should not pad with zeros, so 2007 would come out as 2007, and 2012.33 and 2012.33.
I've tried lots of combinations using Format, FormatFloat, FloatToStrF but can't quite seem to hit the jackpot. Many thanks for any help.
Edit: I should clarify that I am trying to convert it to a string representation, without the Exponent (E) part.
FormatFloat('0.######################', 1.00500000274996E-8) should do the trick.
Output is: 0,0000000100500000274996
It will not output more digits than absolutely necessary.
See John Herbster's Exact Float to String Routines in CodeCentral. Perhaps not exactly what youre after but might be good starting point... CC item's description:
This module includes
(a) functions for converting a floating binary point number to its *exact* decimal representation in an AnsiString;
(b) functions for parsing the floating point types into sign, exponent, and mantissa; and
(c) function for analyzing a extended float number into its type (zero, normal, infinity, etc.)
Its intended use is for trouble shooting problems with floating point numbers.
His DecimalRounding routines might be of intrest too.