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Re: [Orgmode] adding up decimal fractions in the spreadsheet
From: |
Carsten Dominik |
Subject: |
Re: [Orgmode] adding up decimal fractions in the spreadsheet |
Date: |
Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:19:29 +0200 |
Hi Rainer,
it is a common mis-conception that a number that has a limited number
of digits in base 10 can be represented exactly on a computer. This
is correct for integers, but not for fractional numbers.
Example:
1. Open the emacs calc with M-x calc RET
2. Type 12130.68 (first number from your example)
3. Press `p 200 RET' to switch to 200 digit precision.
4. press `d r 2 RET' o display the number in Base 2.
You'll see
10111101100010.1010111000010100011110101110000101000111101011100001010001111010111000010100011110101110000101000111101011100001010001111010111000010100011110101110000
................
It works the other way round as well, for example
0.33333333............. has an exact representation in base 3 (0.1).
This means that even simple additions like this do produce small
errors on computers, and the displayed result will depend upon how he
conversion is done.
(format "%s" x) just spits out digits, as many as possible. That is
why the fix I have pushed to the git repo uses
(number-to-string res)
and not
(format "%s" res)
number-to-string is an internal function that tries very hard to do
the conversion in the way you intend it.
- Carsten
On Sep 27, 2008, at 9:19 AM, Rainer Thiel wrote:
Following a hint by Bernt Hansen, I have now changed org-table-sum to
(format "%s" res) until I'll be able to use the corrected version
Carsten Dominik uploaded to the git repository (which I am not sure
how to access).
Even so, org-table-sum at times shows a strange behaviour.
When I try to sum up the following table:
| 12130.68 |
| -1444.19 |
| -12744.90 |
| -186.00 |
| 7000.00 |
| -7056.00 |
| -335.58 |
| -277.00 |
I get -2912.9899999999993 (-2912.99 being the exact result). This is
something I'd expect when square roots or logarithms are implied, but
with such a simple addition and subtraction of decimal numbers I'd be
inclined to call it a bug. Is there a way to improve org-mode in this
respect?
Many thanks again for this great mode
--
Prof. Dr. Rainer Thiel
Institut für Altertumswissenschaften
07737 Jena, Germany (EU)
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Re: [Orgmode] adding up decimal fractions in the spreadsheet, Manish, 2008/09/27