Re: Result not zero

[Kevin Ryde]

"Michael Mann" <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> I was looking at GMP to alleviate some situations where ieee floating
> point's inherent problems are unacceptable, accountancy for example. That
> is, certain decimal numbers can't be represented correctly in ieee--a BCD
> number class is required.

It's unlikely mpf will suit, it guarantees even less than ieee.

> Here's my sample code: subtract 0.01 from .1, 10 times. You should have zero
> at the end. However, the result claims to be 0.1469367938527859385e-37.

mpf uses binary internally, and decimal fractions like .1 and 0.01
can't be exactly represented, hence the rounding.

> Is there a fix for this? Am I using the right mp?_ functions? Is the GMP
> library appropriate?

As others have pointed out, mpz might be better, if you can work in
cents or hundredths of cents or whatever your business rules require.