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Single precision is termed REAL in Fortran; [1] SINGLE-FLOAT in Common Lisp; [2] float in C, C++, C# and Java; [3] Float in Haskell [4] and Swift; [5] and Single in Object Pascal , Visual Basic, and MATLAB. However, float in Python, Ruby, PHP, and OCaml and single in versions of Octave before 3.2 refer to double-precision numbers.
For example, the number 2469/200 is a floating-point number in base ten with five digits: / = = ⏟ ⏟ ⏞ However, unlike 2469/200 = 12.345, 7716/625 = 12.3456 is not a floating-point number in base ten with five digits—it needs six digits. The nearest floating-point number with only five digits is 12.346.
In the floating-point case, a variable exponent would represent the power of ten to which the mantissa of the number is multiplied. Languages that support a rational data type usually allow the construction of such a value from two integers, instead of a base-2 floating-point number, due to the loss of exactness the latter would cause.
Python supports normal floating point numbers, which are created when a dot is used in a literal (e.g. 1.1), when an integer and a floating point number are used in an expression, or as a result of some mathematical operations ("true division" via the / operator, or exponentiation with a negative exponent).
The standard type hierarchy of Python 3. In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a collection or grouping of data values, usually specified by a set of possible values, a set of allowed operations on these values, and/or a representation of these values as machine types. [1]
Because floating-point numbers have limited precision, only a subset of real or rational numbers are exactly representable; other numbers can be represented only approximately. Many languages have both a single precision (often called float ) and a double precision type (often called double ).
However, on modern standard computers (i.e., implementing IEEE 754), one may safely assume that the endianness is the same for floating-point numbers as for integers, making the conversion straightforward regardless of data type. Small embedded systems using special floating-point formats may be another matter, however.
In computer science, a literal is a textual representation (notation) of a value as it is written in source code. [1] [2] Almost all programming languages have notations for atomic values such as integers, floating-point numbers, and strings, and usually for Booleans and characters; some also have notations for elements of enumerated types and compound values such as arrays, records, and objects.