Notes

Floating Point Number

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Floating point number is a numeric data type used to represent real-number approximations.

Floating point values can represent fractions and very large or very small numbers, but they are not exact for all decimal values.

For example:

print(0.1 + 0.2)

This may print a value like 0.30000000000000004 because many decimal fractions cannot be represented exactly in binary floating point.

Common floating point types include:

  • float32
  • float64
  • double

Floating point numbers are useful for measurement, simulation, graphics, and scientific computation. They are usually a poor choice for money unless the rounding behavior is carefully controlled.

Anki

id: floating-point-definition deck: Computer Science::Data Types tags: data-types floating-point

Q: What is a floating point number? A: A floating point number is a numeric data type used to represent real-number approximations.

id: floating-point-precision deck: Computer Science::Data Types tags: data-types floating-point precision

Q: Why can 0.1 + 0.2 produce an unexpected floating point result? A: Many decimal fractions cannot be represented exactly in binary floating point, so arithmetic can produce small precision errors.

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