From bad to worse [Software]

posted by mittyri – Russia, 2020-12-11 01:22 (1204 d 01:13 ago) – Posting: # 22136
Views: 8,566

Dear Ohlbe,

❝ If I get -2,77556E-17 when I type =(0.5-0.4-0.1), how comes that I get 0 when I type =(-0.1-0.4+0.5) ? The same figures, just in a different order ?


The order matters when you go to floating point arithmetic;-)


❝ If I get FALSE when I type =0=0.5-0.4-0.1, how comes that I get TRUE when I type =0=-0.4-0.1+0.5 ?


Rightyright. Why did it happen? The root cause is described here
Excel does do some additional operations under the hood.

❝ And to be fair to Excel, the same happens in [image]:


0==(0.5-0.4-0.1)

[1] FALSE

0==(-0.4-0.1+0.5)

[1] TRUE


❝ Are they first calculating -0.4-0.1=-0.5, which is nicely binarily coded, then -0.5+0.5=0 ?


Yes, take a look at this MS article
Both Excel and R are following IEEE 754, not surprising that the conditions are giving the same results. The problem is only in values representation to the user.

Kind regards,
Mittyri

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