[R] bug?

[M. Edward Borasky]

To be more precise, the decimal number 0.1 does not have an exact binary
equivalent. A long time ago, there was a book called, IIRC, "Pascal with
Style" or something of that ilk, which set out the warning "Never compare
floating point numbers for equality."

-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
mailto:znmeb at borasky-research.net
http://www.borasky-research.net
 
"Suppose that tonight, while you sleep, a miracle happens - you wake up
tomorrow with what you have longed for! How will you discover that a miracle
happened? How will your loved ones? What will be different? What will you
notice? What do you need to explode into tomorrow with grace, power, love,
passion and confidence?" -- L. Michael Hall, PhD


> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Uwe Ligges
> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 1:10 AM
> To: Marc Vandemeulebroecke
> Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] bug?
> 
> 
> Marc Vandemeulebroecke wrote:
> 
> > Dear R programmers,
> > 
> > is there a sensible explanation for the following behaviour? The 
> > second command seems not to be interpreted correctly.
> > 
> > 
> >>seq(0.6, 0.9, by=0.1) == 0.8
> > 
> > [1] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
> > 
> >>seq(0.7, 0.9, by=0.1) == 0.8
> > 
> > [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE
> > 
> >>c(0.7, 0.8, 0.9) == 0.8
> > 
> > [1] FALSE  TRUE FALSE
> > 
> >>seq(0.9, 0.7, by=-0.1) == 0.8
> > 
> > [1] FALSE  TRUE FALSE
> > 
> > I am running R version 1.7.1 on XP and NT.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Marc
> > 
> > --
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list 
> > https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> 
> 
> It is correct, just an instability of the representation of that 
> floating point number, because (regularly) floating point 
> numbers cannot 
> be represented exactly.
> 
> Uwe Ligges
> 
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>