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Groups > comp.lang.c > #164286

Re: Can this program be improved?

From Bart <bc@freeuk.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.c
Subject Re: Can this program be improved?
Date 2022-01-04 21:02 +0000
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <sr2ckp$co8$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References (19 earlier) <ff338dd2-a4fe-4b06-8b4a-e3622b666c9en@googlegroups.com> <sr1058$1thv$1@gioia.aioe.org> <sr1vgu$u1j$1@gioia.aioe.org> <sr24c4$i02$1@dont-email.me> <6d78fbba-8bde-4bf4-9f90-40e59bcd61a3n@googlegroups.com>

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On 04/01/2022 18:52, Malcolm McLean wrote:
> On Tuesday, 4 January 2022 at 18:41:20 UTC, Bart wrote:
>> On 04/01/2022 17:18, Guillaume wrote:
>>> Le 04/01/2022 à 09:23, Mateusz Viste a écrit :
>>>> 2022-01-03 at 15:43 -0800, Malcolm McLean wrote:
>>>>> will have been melted down for metal. So is 53 bits enough? I don't
>>>>> write programs that deal withh amounts of money, so I don't really
>>>>> know. However if I had to choose a C type, I'd probably go for
>>>>> integer representation of amounts in cents, using a double.
>>>>
>>>> A double is nice to represent not-100%-precise fractional units,
>>>> it really does not have its place in any kind of financial
>>>> program, esp. if the goal is storing cents anyway.
>>>
>>> Absolutely. Using FP for financial calculations is for people who don't
>>> know arithmetics. Maybe teaching some math (again) to CS students would
>>> help, here? :)
>>>
>>> At the very least, if you absolutely want to use FP for this, at least
>>> use decimal FP. Although it can still have precision issues due to its
>>> floating point nature, at least rounding will not yield gross errors.
>>
>> 64-bit floating point can represent values up to c. 10 trillion dollars
>> to the nearest cent. (I think the limit corresponds to the 2**52 bits of
>> precision.)
>>
> 53 bits. You get a "free" bit because the leading digit is always 1, except for
> zero, which has a special representation.

If the 53rd bit is always 1, then isn't the precision determined by the 
other 52 bits?

So if a mantissa was only going to be 0b10 or 0b11, to me that's only 
1-bit precision!

>> It won't be to the exact cent if printed to many decimals, but if you
>> know it is supposed to represent values that end in exactly 0.00 to
>> 0.99, then it will display properly if converted to text and rounded to
>> 2 decimals.
>>
>> So it can be used to store such values. Calculating with it is a
>> different matter if you are actually working with that kind of magnitude
>> and actually need 1-cent accuracy and reproducability (which is going to
>> be virtually nobody).
>>
>>> And if you're OK with using integers, but are afraid fixed-size ones (at
>>> least 64 bits) could be an unacceptable limit down the road, just use
>>> arbitrary precision arithmetic. And you don't need to hand-implement
>>> that, unless it's your thing. GNU GMP is great.
>>
>> No, it isn't. It's a massive great dependency. If you really need to use
>> it, look for GMP-lite (a solution using one .h and one .c file).
>>
>> However to me that would be a sign of someone who doesn't know what
>> they're doing and just throws unnecessary precision at the problem in
>> the hope it will magically fix any issues.
>>
> I checked a few real world financial implementations.
> In Java, they have a class which can use either a 32-bit integer, a 64 bit integer,
> or a "Big Decimal" as the underlying representation.

32 bits doesn't sound much but it will represent up to £21m to the exact 
penny. So fine for storage up to such limits, but you'd need a bigger 
type to do anything beyond adding and subtracting.

> The recommendation is
> to use the Big Decimal. Presumably it will scale to arbitrarily values.

Say you have an amount of exactly EC$100.00 (a currency I've worked 
with). You want to convert it to US$ at a rate of 1 US$ = $2.7169 EC$ (I 
believe this is the official exchange rate).

The result is US$36.8066546431594832345688100408..., it goes on forever.

To the nearest US cent, it'll be US$36.81, but it's approximate. You'd 
get that result with Big Decimal, float64, or float32. Big decimal 
hasn't helped here.

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Thread

Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-25 01:00 +0000
  Re: Can this program be improved? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2021-12-24 21:44 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-12-25 12:56 +0100
    Re: Can this program be improved? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2021-12-25 11:13 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-25 23:50 +0100
    Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 18:52 +0000
      Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-26 19:22 +0000
        Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 21:30 +0000
          Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-26 22:02 +0000
          Re: Can this program be improved? Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2021-12-26 18:24 -0500
          Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-27 00:47 +0000
    Re: Can this program be improved? Guillaume <message@bottle.org> - 2021-12-29 17:52 +0100
      Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-29 17:49 +0000
        Re: Can this program be improved? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2021-12-29 11:33 -0800
          Re: Can this program be improved? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2021-12-29 22:45 -0500
            Re: Can this program be improved? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2021-12-30 00:35 -0800
              Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2021-12-30 10:19 +0100
          Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-01 18:19 +0000
            Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-01 19:33 +0000
        Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-29 14:37 -0800
          Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-29 23:09 +0000
            Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2021-12-29 23:54 +0000
              Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-29 16:11 -0800
              Re: Can this program be improved? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2021-12-30 00:34 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-30 12:49 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2021-12-30 21:04 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-31 02:13 +0000
            Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-29 16:09 -0800
              Re: Can this program be improved? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2021-12-30 00:59 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-29 17:48 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2021-12-30 20:47 +0000
              Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-30 01:06 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-12-30 04:48 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-30 18:16 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-31 02:20 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2021-12-31 18:25 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2021-12-31 18:13 -0500
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-31 23:59 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? "james...@alumni.caltech.edu" <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2021-12-31 16:20 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-31 16:35 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-01 00:53 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-31 20:22 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-12-31 22:04 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-01 14:59 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-02 17:22 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-02 20:49 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 03:09 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-01-03 16:22 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 14:42 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 14:52 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-03 22:58 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 04:27 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-04 13:39 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-01-04 00:18 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 15:24 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 15:43 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2022-01-03 21:19 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Mateusz Viste <mateusz@xyz.invalid> - 2022-01-04 09:23 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Guillaume <message@bottle.org> - 2022-01-04 18:18 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 10:35 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 14:07 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 15:11 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 15:47 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 18:30 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-01-04 23:46 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-04 18:41 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 10:52 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-01-04 19:00 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 11:15 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Guillaume <message@bottle.org> - 2022-01-04 21:57 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-04 21:02 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-01-04 21:38 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2022-01-04 23:01 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-01-04 09:31 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 01:30 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-01-04 14:55 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-04 06:21 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-01-04 16:49 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-04 15:56 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-04 15:03 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-03 22:54 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Mateusz Viste <mateusz@xyz.invalid> - 2022-01-03 09:22 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 03:30 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2022-01-03 17:22 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 08:48 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Mateusz Viste <mateusz@xyz.invalid> - 2022-01-03 18:42 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-03 17:59 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 11:09 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? Mateusz Viste <mateusz@xyz.invalid> - 2022-01-03 20:32 +0100
                Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2022-01-03 11:58 -0800
                Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2022-01-03 18:13 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2022-01-03 20:05 +0000
                Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2022-01-01 16:53 +0000
          Re: Can this program be improved? Kaz Kylheku <480-992-1380@kylheku.com> - 2021-12-30 00:29 +0000
  Re: Can this program be improved? Bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2021-12-25 12:47 +0000
    Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 18:56 +0000
  Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-25 17:38 +0000
    Re: Can this program be improved? Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2021-12-25 10:58 -0800
      Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-25 19:16 +0000
        Re: Can this program be improved? Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2021-12-25 11:25 -0800
      Re: Can this program be improved? "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2021-12-25 15:01 -0800
        Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-25 23:09 +0000
          Re: Can this program be improved? "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2021-12-25 20:56 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2021-12-25 19:30 +0000
      Re: Can this program be improved? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2021-12-25 15:50 -0800
        Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 19:02 +0000
    Re: Can this program be improved? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2021-12-25 11:53 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 19:00 +0000
  Re: Can this program be improved? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2021-12-25 11:22 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? Manu Raju <MR@invalid.invalid> - 2021-12-26 19:01 +0000
  Re: Can this program be improved? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2021-12-25 13:27 -0800
    Re: Can this program be improved? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2021-12-25 16:06 -0800
  Re: Can this program be improved? Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2021-12-29 15:21 +0000

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