Lynch, Jonathan wrote:
Even just this simple line produces the same error:
<snip>
Somehow, Rev is performing 36-34.2, and even though it displays that
number as 1.8, it must be processing it internally as
1.799999999999999999999999999 or something like that.
Very disturbing - This could affect a program of mine.
It is easily worked around, with a function like this:
function trueTrunc pNumber
set the itemdelimiter to "."
return item 1 of pNumber
end trueTrunc
That won't necessarily work. trueTrunc(179.9999) ==> 179
You need to be very careful how you test things like this .... given
half a chance, Transcript will use a string representation rather than
an arithmetic one.
set the itemDel to "."
put <something> into myT
put item 1 of myT && trunc(myT)
Gives the following results
"something" output
179.99999999 179 179 (it used the string repr)
179.99999999+0 180 179
(the addition forced arithmetic representation - and then got
rounding; trunc didn't get any rounding).
But still, trunc should work properly. That makes me wonder if any other
math functions might have some underlying weirdness.
(see the little snippet above :-)
As I understand it (though I can't now find it in the docs), when doing
arithmetic Transcript represents numbers in the most suitable format -
either integer or double-prec floating point. In the example here,
because it has "34.2" the suitable precision is double. Since many
"simple" decimal floating values can't be exactly represented in binary
floating point format, there is always a chance of minor discrepancies
between the "obvious" value and the precise one used by Transcript.
Transcript does a good job of "magically" rounding as needed - but the
issue is still there.
trunc(x) is always dangerous because it will truncate down to the lower
integral part (e.g. 179.9999999 --> 179) if there is even the tiniest
discrepancy. Much safer would be to trunc(x+delta), where delta is the
level of accuracy required - say typically delta = 0.000005
trueTrunc() will be slightly "safer" because it uses Transcripts "magic"
conversion, and hence rounds off at some nominal level - probably 6
decimal places or something like that -- but if it were me I'd rather
take control and determine for myself what number of digits to do the
rounding at.
I do not believe this is a bug - merely a trap for the unwary.
--
Alex Tweedly http://www.tweedly.net
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