For what it's worth, there is a method called "bucket rounding" that is often used
in transportation planning (but nowhere else according to google)
which can help in this type of problem (within the limits of
machine precision). The process is very
simple: the "residue" from each rounding operation in a sequence
is retained to be applied as a bias to the next one. So
for merlyn's example:
# Value Residue Rounded Comment
1 10.3 0.0 10 0.3 is added to the residue
2 10.3 0.3 11 10.3 + 0.3 = 10.6, which rounds to
+11 with -0.4 residue
3 10.4 -0.4 10
==== ====
31.0 31
This is most commonly applied in the factoring of 2D matrices representing
trips from location to location. While the value of each cell is not
usually affected by a minor rounding error, the total of the matrix
needs to be held constant.
I'm certainly not qualified to say whether this
would be appropriate for financial work though.
--
I'd like to be able to assign to an luser
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|