Perl can't make some easy arithmetics :(

[rsFalse]

Today I spend time to understand why do I get wrong answers, and I don't know an answer. Later I tried and found how to overcome problem: use bigint and add zeroes. See this:

while(<>){
    ($a, $b)=split/ /;
    print $a - $b, " ";
    print (($a+0)-($b+0), " ");
    use bigint;
    print $a - $b, " ";
    print (($a+0)-($b+0), "\n");
    }

STDIN:
9 7
900000000000000009 900000000000000007

STDOUT:
2 2 2 2
0 0 0 2

[LanX]

Understanding the limitations of floating point arithmetics is a basic requirement for any programmer - no matter which language.

[no_slogan]

From a language design perspective, what do we gain by using machine-precision floating point as our default numeric representation? Nothing, really, except that it's easy to implement. I think modern languages should follow Python's lead and switch to extended-precision formats.

[BrowserUk]

what do we gain by using machine-precision floating point as our default numeric representation?

I just watched an HD movie on my PC. In the 105 minutes of runtime, approximately 100 billion calculations are performed.

If these calculations were done using bigint, then the movie would take 34.5 days to watch...

cmpthese -1, {
    a=>q[my $t=0; $t *= $_ for 1 .. 1e3;], 
    b=>q[use bigint; my $t=0; $t *= $_ for 1 .. 1e3 ] 
};;
     Rate      b      a
b  23.8/s     --  -100%
a 11263/s 47292%     --

I'm more than happy to have to consider the limitations of native machine precision.

[LanX]

I don't know much about "Python's extended-precision formats" and I'd probably agree.

The OP wasn't very clear about what his problem is, it looked like the usual "why is FP arithmetics not DWIM".

As it turned out later, he has a problem with some bigint automatisms and not Perl (like his rather naive title indicated).

Anyway - modern language or not - understanding FP's limitations is still crucial.

[Loops]

What version of Perl are you using?

perl 5, version 18, subversion 4 (v5.18.4) on 64bit:

2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2

[LanX]

Could it be you are on a 64 bit system?

Perl automatically switches to floating point representation² if the integer range is exceeded¹.

update

Oh yes you did an update showing the bits :)

¹) 2**31 < 900000000000000009 < 2**63

²) IIRC does Perl's FP mantissa have 56 bits so 7.2e+16 ~~ 2**56  < 900000000000000009 ~~ 9e+17

[no_slogan]

It's 52 bits, not 56. Double-precision floating-point format #pedantry

[rsFalse]

I used ideone.com for calculating. It says version is 5.16.2

[Loops]

Okay, ideone.com is running on 32bit, and that is what you're running into. On my 64bit system with this input:

9 7
900000000000000009 900000000000000007
99223372036854775810 99223372036854775808

The output is:

2 2 2 2
2 2 2 2
0 0 0 2