[fpc-pascal] Re: Why this evaluates on "if" wrong ?

[Stephen Dickason]

> It's just one more funny thing one must realize,
> when comparing real numbers with some exact
> real constants. After this, I will try to never
> compare doubles directly, but using tricks like
> above. Because, in this digital world
> 1 + 0.4 - 0.4 <> 1.

In binary that is 00000001 + 0.0110011001100.... - 0.0110011001100.... because
we hit recurring decimals a lot more in binary than decimal.  I wonder why we
don't have a standard format (maybe we do?) that factors in the remainder as
part of the number also?  4 bits with recurring fraction ("decimal") debugging
power could do some good.  Maybe it's just too messy and slows FP operations
even more.  Would think that 0000 for recurring length too big, 0001 for no
recurring, and 0010-1111 (2-15) would be length of recurring bits from lsb.  Not
sure if one would be able to detect longer easily.  That would be able to cover
4 decimal digits of repeating bits.

  0.0110011001100 (was 4/10)
+ 0.0110011001100 (was 4/10)
+ 0.0011001100110 (was 2/10)
= 0.1111111111111 (was 10/10)
 (0.0000000000001 short)

With the above, they all repeat on 4 bits:
  1100
  1100
  0110
=11110 - this would translate to a series of 1s if recurred.
Would here be able to surmise that we need to add the 0001 that is short.
because the recursion has been undone.  It would probably lead to a pile of new
problems but, that's another story.

Stephen
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