Re: Decimal: Formal review begins.

From: Ruben Perez (rubenperez038_at_[hidden])
Date: 2025-01-17 21:30:52

On Fri, 17 Jan 2025 at 22:22, Christopher Kormanyos <e_float_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> > Question:
>
> > I've noticed that this:
>
> > 1.23456789098787237982792742932938492382342382342002934932_df
>
> > Compiles, although it truncates the
> > value to 1.234568. Would it make
> > sense to somehow tell the user "hey,
> > this literal is too long"
>
> It would absolutely make sense, but
> then you would need the same thing to
> happen for float, double and long
> double in the Standard, which isn't
> going to happen.
>
> So Decimal follows suit.

Hm, would you? If I understood correctly, decimals are suited for
exact calculations, while standard floating point values are intended
for approximate calculations. In this line of thought, I think it
would make sense for decimals to be much more strict with losing
precision than floats. That is, rounding will almost always happen
with a float literal, while rounding with a decimal literal is more
likely to be a programmer error (I'd say).

Of course, you know your users and the field better than me.