float_to_list(X)

[Bob Ippolito]

Modern JavaScript does have BigInt. No syntax support though, so it is not
very ergonomic.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/BigInt

Many (most?) modern float-to-string functions will use the minimal number
of digits that can represent the float exactly (round-trip without loss of
precision). Erlang's float_to_list/1 is a relic that does not, possibly for
backwards compatibility reasons. I bet changing it would at least break
some brittle tests :) Fortunately the functionality is available in OTP
these days, in a roundabout way.


On Sat, May 8, 2021 at 3:37 PM Peer Stritzinger <peer@REDACTED>
wrote:

> Just reading that you come from a accounting background: this messiness I
> described is the reason its a quite bad idea to represent monetary values
> as floats because its also the reason that:
>
> This is not exactly what was requested by the current tutorial step. Feel
> free to play with the shell, anyway.
>
> > 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1+ 0.1.
> 0.9999999999999999
>
> No Erlangs floating point implementation isn’t broken (at least not in
> this way).  All floating point implementation based on binary fractions
> behave like this.
>
> Thats why some languages used for finance have decimal fractions and in
> languages that don’t the only sane way to represent monetary values are
> using a integer multiple of some fixed fraction of the currency involved
> (like pico euro).  Its nice if you have a non overflowing integer
> representation like in Erlang for that BTW.
>
> Now imagine JavaScript has no integers but only floats (if they just added
> integers recently I take that back partially ;-) and are used to represent
> money quite a bit -> joy!
>
> Cheers,
> -- Peer
>
>
> > On 9. May 2021, at 00:27, Peer Stritzinger <peer@REDACTED> wrote:
> >
> > I think for the sake of the OP "round trip" needs explaining:
> >
> > It does not mean that “arbitrary float string X” -> float -> “string
> identical to X” is true.
> >
> > It does however mean: float Y -> string representation -> float Y.
> >
> > One problem is that many fractions like e.g. the simple example of
> decimal 0.1 are representable as a finite binary fraction:
> >
> > 0.1 base 10 is 0.00011001100110011… base 2 (where … means its a infinite
> repetition of the digits 0011)
> >
> > So converting seemingly harmless base 10 floating point strings result
> in infinite binary fractions.  Then it depends on how they are rounded if
> conversion back to base 10 string gives you the same string or a rounding
> error shows.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -- Peer
> >
> >> On 7. May 2021, at 13:57, Thomas Depierre <depierre.thomas@REDACTED>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> That is not true.
> >>
> >> The formatting used in format ~p is the shortest round trip one. This
> will be different for every single binary floating point number but also be
> far shorter and readable. There is work in progress to bring this as an
> option in float_to_list/2 thanks to the recent work in Ryu and Dragonbox.
> >>
> >> Having a fixed precision already exist in float_to_list/2. This works
> as printf %f. I strongly advise to not use it as this precision does not
> translate well to the binary format precision loss.
> >>
> >> I understand that float to string and string to float conversion are
> thought as niche topic, so i will be happy to provide all the bibliography
> you may need to explore it if you are surprised by my explanations.
> >>
> >> Kindly,
> >>
> >> Thomas Depierre
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, 7 May 2021, 12:27 Richard O'Keefe, <raoknz@REDACTED> wrote:
> >> No, making float_to_list/1 a wrapper for format... does not make sense.
> >> float_to_list/1 is meant to give you an accurate representation of the
> >> value.  Two different floats, no matter how small the difference,
> >> should result in different lists.  It's meant for converting a float
> >> to text that you can send to another machine and reconstitute the
> >> same value there.  This will usually result in more digits than a human
> >> would normally want to see.
> >>
> >> If you *want* format ~p, use it!
> >>
> >> Now perhaps there might be an argument to be made for
> >> float_to_list(X: number(), N: integer()) -> string()
> >> returning a string that represents X as accurately as
> >> possible using N digits.  But that is another discussion.
> >>
> >> On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 20:56, Themba Jonga <themba.jonga@REDACTED>
> wrote:
> >> Hi, again.
> >>
> >> Following a response I got from Dmitry Klionsky, perhaps it makes sense
> for float_to_list(N) to be made into a wrapper for
> lists:flatten(io_lib:format("~p",[N]))?
> >>
> >> Eshell V11.1  (abort with ^G)
> >> 1> N = 4.4445.
> >> 4.4445
> >> 2> lists:flatten(io_lib:format("~p",[N])).
> >> "4.4445"
> >> 3> P = 5.4443.
> >> 5.4443
> >> 4> lists:flatten(io_lib:format("~p",[P])).
> >> "5.4443"
> >> 5> Q = 1.2345678.
> >> 1.2345678
> >> 6> lists:flatten(io_lib:format("~p",[Q])).
> >> "1.2345678"
> >> 7> float_to_list(Q).
> >> "1.23456779999999999298e+00"
> >> 8>
> >>
> >> Regards
> >>
> >> Themba Jonga
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>      Virus-free. www.avg.com
> >>
> >> On Wed, 5 May 2021 at 18:38, Scott Ribe <scott_ribe@REDACTED>
> wrote:
> >> > On May 5, 2021, at 10:20 AM, 2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE@REDACTED
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > In short, no.
> >>
> >> Although many (most, actually nearly all) real numbers cannot be
> represented precisely as a float, any float can be round-tripped to text
> and back exactly. This is part of the IEEE floating point standard,
> actually. (And it's not easy...)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>      Virus-free. www.avg.com
> >
>
>
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