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Re: st: rounding the minimum of a negative number
From
Nick Cox <[email protected]>
To
[email protected]
Subject
Re: st: rounding the minimum of a negative number
Date
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:15:45 +0000
I don't think that is a clear specification of what Stata is doing (it
doesn't "make up its own digits") or of what it should, in your view,
do instead.
If you want _display_ to a fixed number of decimal places, that is
ultimately a question of formatting and not a problem of numerics.
That is,
display %3.2 f 1 + 98/100
will ensure that you see "1.98" and this last step is in essence
string manipulation with numeric characters. But all that is done by
(e.g.)
scalar foo = 1.98
is putting a binary approximation of 1.98 in a scalar. Adding bits
will change the accuracy of the approximation (only).
Nick
On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 12:59 AM, annoporci <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 1. At machine level Stata's calculations are necessarily in binary.
>> Stata and most modern software go to enormous lengths to make it seem
>> otherwise, but the fact is inescapable, ineluctable and inevitable.
>
>
> Sure, I can't argue with that, but I would have expected Stata to keep a few
> digits of zeros stored in memory (say 6 zeros), instead of making up its own
> digits.
> Patrick Toche.
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