[R] How many decimal places of information does R actually use in computation?

Bert Gunter gunter.berton at gene.com
Tue May 21 05:39:34 CEST 2013


See, e.g.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-precision_floating-point_format

Also in ?print.default  please note:

Large number of digits

Note that for large values of digits, currently for digits >= 16, the
calculation of the number of significant digits will depend on the
platform's internal (C library) implementation of sprintf()
functionality.

-- Bert

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 6:06 PM, Xiao He <praguewatermelon at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear R-users:
>
> Hi, I read here (
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2287616/controlling-digits-in-r) that R
> is only accurate up to the 15th decimal place, despite the fact that if you
> choose to display more decimal places, it will. I wonder if R uses the
> information beyond the 15th decimal place in actual computation. Thanks!
>
>
> Best,
> Xiao
>
>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



-- 

Bert Gunter
Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics

Internal Contact Info:
Phone: 467-7374
Website:
http://pharmadevelopment.roche.com/index/pdb/pdb-functional-groups/pdb-biostatistics/pdb-ncb-home.htm



More information about the R-help mailing list