[erlang-questions] floating point exception when accuracy exceeds limit

[Johan Montelius]

This might be no news to anyone who is doing a lot of floating point  
arithmetics but it made me scratch my head.


7> (6.0e150*6.0e150).
3.6000000000000004e301

8> (6.0e154*6.0e154).
** exception error: an error occurred when evaluating an arithmetic  
expression
      in operator  */2
         called as 6.0e154 * 6.0e154


Hmm, would it not be better to answer with the highest possible accuracy?

   Johan


-- 
Assoc. Prof. Johan Montelius
Software and Computer Systems
School of Information and Communication Technology
KTH - Royal Institute of Technology