# FloatApprox

© 2014 John Abbott
GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

- Examples
- User documentation
  - Pseudo-constructors for binary representation
  - Pseudo-constructors for decimal representation
- Maintainer documentation
- Bugs, shortcomings and other ideas
- Main changes

CoCoALib Documentation Index

## Examples

- ex-empty.C

## User documentation

These functions determine a "floating point" approximation to an integer or rational. The base of the representation is either 2 or 10.

See also: `ToString` for functions producing readable numbers.

### Pseudo-constructors for binary representation

- `MantissaAndExponent2(x,prec)` determine the `MantExp2` structure for `x` with precision `prec`
- `FloatApprox(x,prec)` apply `MantissaAndExponent2` then convert the result into `BigRat`.

The value of `prec` is the number of bits in the mantissa; if unspecified, it defaults to 53.

A `MantExp2` structure contains 4 public data fields:

- `mySign` an `int` having value -1 or 1
- `myExponent` a `long`
- `myMantissa` a `BigInt` (between `2^(prec-1)` and `2^prec-1`)
- `myNumDigits` a `long` (just the value of `prec`)

As an exception if `x=0` then all fields are set to 0.

The structure represents the value `mySign * (myMantissa/2^(myNumDigits-1)) * 2^myExponent`.

### Pseudo-constructors for decimal representation

- `MantissaAndExponent10(x,prec)` determine the `MantExp10` structure for `x` with precision `prec`

The value of `prec` is the number of (decimal) digits in the mantissa; if unspecified, it defaults to 5.

A `MantExp10` structure contains 3 public data fields:

- `mySign` an `int` having value -1 or 1
- `myExponent` a `long`
- `myMantissa` a `BigInt` (between `10^(prec-1)` and `10^prec-1`)
- `myNumDigits` a `long` (just the value of `prec`)

As an exception if `x=0` then all fields are set to 0.

The structure represents the value `mySign * (myMantissa/10^(myNumDigits-1)) * 10^myExponent`.

## Maintainer documentation

The implementation is simple rather than efficient. The current design ensures that 0.5ulp is rounded consistently (currently towards zero).

The only tricky parts were deciding how to round in the case of a tie, and correct behaviour when the mantissa "overflows". I finally decided to delegate rounding to `RoundDiv`: it is easy to implement, and I wanted a solution which was symmetric about zero, so that the two `MantissaAndExponent` fns applied to `N` and to `-N` would always give the same result except for sign.

Mantissa overflow requires special handling, but it's quite easy.

Printing of a `MantExp2` or `MantExp10` structure is simple rather than elegant.

## Bugs, shortcomings and other ideas

Using `mpfr` would surely be better.

The fields of a `MantExp2` and `MantExp10` are publicly accessible; I'm undecided whether it is really better to supply the 3 obvious accessor fns.

The conversion in `MantissaAndExponent10` is rather slow when the input number is large.

In principle the call to `ILogBase` could fail because of overflow; but in that case `ILogBase` itself should report the problem.

In principle a mantissa overflow could trigger an exponent overflow (i.e. if the exponent was already the largest possible long).

## Main changes

2014

- April (v0.99533): first release