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comparisons between floats and ratios
- To: Gail Zacharias <GZ%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Subject: comparisons between floats and ratios
- From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1986 14:42:00 -0000
- Cc: common-lisp@SU-AI.ARPA
- In-reply-to: Msg of 27 Jan 1986 08:42-EST from Gail Zacharias <GZ%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
A not-entirely-unrelated question: What kind of rounding is FLOAT supposed
to do?
I think that the GOAL is to produce the closest approximation to the
ratio that is possible in a given floating-point format. That's what
implementors should shoot for. Whether it makes sense to REQUIRE this
in the very last bit is less clear. I don't think I've ever seen a
floating-point package that got this right all the time.
-- Scott