From: Michael Geary <Mike@...>
Date: 2004-05-13T03:48:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Major Addition Bug?

Phil Tomson wrote:
> [Floating point imprecision seems] to present a major
> problem if you want to deal with financial figures, for
> example.  Are there any workarounds?

Financial calculations aren't done in floating point. There are various
number formats that are used, but they all boil down to some form of integer
arithmetic. For example, fixed point decimal may be used, where the value
$625.91 is represented as the integer 62591 with a scaling factor of two
decimal places. In other words, the arithmetic is actually done in pennies,
not dollars.

-Mike