From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2007-06-23T04:15:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby doesn't know how to multiply

Daniel DeLorme wrote:
> Michael W. Ryder wrote:
>> I think we have a difference of understanding of what fixed point 
>> means.  I look at fixed point numbers meaning something like 1057 
>> means 10.57 in the real world.  I was thinking more of something that 
>> shifted the floating point number to remove the fractions and later 
>> replaced the decimal point in the correct position, which I do not 
>> consider to be fixed point math.
> 
> Basically you are thinking of
>  >> require "rational"
> => true
>  >> Rational(1057,100).to_f
> => 10.57
> 
> Daniel
> 

I have been using Business Basic for over 25 years and it is what I 
consider fixed point.  For example, entering 'Print 14.95*.6' results in 
8.97.  The language uses a set precision which can be changed.  For 
example if I tell it to print 120*.000003 with the default precision of 
2 it displays 0.  If I change the precision to 6 and tell it to print 
the same thing it displays .00036.  The computer stores the result in 
the precision at the time of the operation so entering 'a=120*.000003' 
in precision 2 stores 0 in a.  Changing the precision to 6 afterwards 
still shows that 0 is stored in a.  This is not like Ruby using printf 
where different formats show different results.