[Rd] mean relative differences from all.equal() (PR#9276)

[bchristo at email.arizona.edu]

Full_Name: Brad Christoffersen
Version: 2.3.1
OS: Windows XP
Submission from: (NULL) (128.196.193.132)


Why is the difference between two numbers so different from the "mean relative
difference" output from the all.equal() function?  Is this an artifact of the
way R stores numerics?  I could not find this problem as I searched through the
submitted bugs. But I am brand new to R so I apologize if there is something
obvious I'm missing here.

rm(list=ls(all=TRUE))  ## Remove all objects that could hinder w/ consistent
output
a <- 204
b <- 203.9792
all.equal(a,b)
[1] "Mean relative  difference: 0.0001019608"
a - b
[1] 0.0208

---------- version ---------
platform       i386-pc-mingw32           
arch           i386                      
os             mingw32                   
system         i386, mingw32             
status                                   
major          2                         
minor          3.1                       
year           2006                      
month          06                        
day            01                        
svn rev        38247                     
language       R                         
version.string Version 2.3.1 (2006-06-01)

Thanks,
Brad