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$ cat a.c #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("%s\n", 5056.45 + 10112.92 == 15169.37 ? "granted" : "Stop b +laming Perl for your own mistakes!"); return 0; } $ gcc -o a a.c && a Stop blaming Perl for your own mistakes!

45/100, 92/100 and 37/100 are all periodic numbers in binary just like 1/3 is in decimal. It would take infinite storage to store it accurately as a floating point number (regardless of the language). As such, there are tiny differences between the number you specify any the number you actually have

$ perl -e'printf "%.20e\n", $_ for @ARGV' 0.45 0.92 0.37 4.50000000000000011102e-01 9.20000000000000039968e-01 3.69999999999999995559e-01

That's why you must include a tolerance for error when dealing with floating points numbers.

$ perl -le 'print abs(5056.45 + 10112.92 - 15169.37) < 0.0001 ? "as ex +pected" : "perl math sucks!"' as expected $ perl -le 'print sprintf("%.4f", 5056.45 + 10112.92) eq sprintf("%.4f +", 15169.37) ? "as expected" : "perl math sucks!"' as expected

That's 9 digits of precision, and you can even go higher.


In reply to Re: Why does perl math suck? by ikegami
in thread Why does perl math suck? by sharkey

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