Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In computing, a roundoff error, [1] also called rounding error, [2] is the difference between the result produced by a given algorithm using exact arithmetic and the result produced by the same algorithm using finite-precision, rounded arithmetic. [3]
[1] [2] All functions use floating-point numbers in one manner or another. Different C standards provide different, albeit backwards-compatible, sets of functions. Most of these functions are also available in the C++ standard library, though in different headers (the C headers are included as well, but only as a deprecated compatibility feature).
Huberto M. Sierra noted in his 1956 patent "Floating Decimal Point Arithmetic Control Means for Calculator": [1] Thus under some conditions, the major portion of the significant data digits may lie beyond the capacity of the registers.
The main objective of interval arithmetic is to provide a simple way of calculating upper and lower bounds of a function's range in one or more variables. These endpoints are not necessarily the true supremum or infimum of a range since the precise calculation of those values can be difficult or impossible; the bounds only need to contain the function's range as a subset.
Floating-point arithmetic operations, such as addition and division, approximate the corresponding real number arithmetic operations by rounding any result that is not a floating-point number itself to a nearby floating-point number. [1]: 22 [2]: 10 For example, in a floating-point arithmetic with five base-ten digits, the sum 12.345 + 1.0001 ...
Python: the built-in int (3.x) / long (2.x) integer type is of arbitrary precision. The Decimal class in the standard library module decimal has user definable precision and limited mathematical operations (exponentiation, square root, etc. but no trigonometric functions). The Fraction class in the module fractions implements rational numbers ...
Integer overflow can be demonstrated through an odometer overflowing, a mechanical version of the phenomenon. All digits are set to the maximum 9 and the next increment of the white digit causes a cascade of carry-over additions setting all digits to 0, but there is no higher digit (1,000,000s digit) to change to a 1, so the counter resets to zero.
Long division is the standard algorithm used for pen-and-paper division of multi-digit numbers expressed in decimal notation. It shifts gradually from the left to the right end of the dividend, subtracting the largest possible multiple of the divisor (at the digit level) at each stage; the multiples then become the digits of the quotient, and the final difference is then the remainder.