scientific notation - truncation



>>>>> "Daniel" == Daniel Lakeland <dlakelan at street-artists.org> writes:

    Daniel> On 03/31/2013 05:21 AM, Volker van Nek wrote:
    >> (%i1) 0.00017;
    >> (%o1)                        1.7000000000000001E-4
    >> (%i2) fpprintprec : 12$
    >> 
    >> (%i3) 0.00017;
    >> (%o3)                               1.7E-4
    >> 
    >> fpprintprec = floating pont printing precision
    >> 
    >> just controls printing and does not affect calculation.
    >> 
    >> Maybe this is what you want.

    Daniel> Yes I think this is what he wants. When working with floating point I
    Daniel> often set fpprintprec:5 or so. Rarely do I care about more than about
    Daniel> 5 digits of any number I read off the screen, since this just affects
    Daniel> printing, it's perfect.

Oddly, I find setting fpprintprec to be somewhat annoying.  For
example, if the value of x and y print the same, I expect x-y to be
zero.  With a non-default of of fpprintprec, this isn't true.  Then I
end up spending lots of time trying to figure out why until I remember
I set fpprintprec.

Ray