On Epsilon, MachineEpsilon, and relative differences – via: I was wondering, that what is the closest value to the Zero floating point can have – G+

  

A long time ago, there was an interesting discussion here: I was wondering, that what is the closest value to the Zero floating point can have.
Recently I needed to do some calculations on series where getting close to zero could become a problem.

Math seems to have an Epsilon of 1E-12.
Sytem.Types has Epsilon of 1E-30 and Epsilon2 of 1E-40.
XE4+ FMX has IsEssentiallyZero and IsNotEssentiallyZero for Single values.

In practice it depends a lot on what you are doing. Sometimes absolute Epsilons are best, but at other times relative difference is much more applicable.
Then there is also a Machine Epsilon: a way to derive an Epsilon from a data type that works in all languages and platforms.
–jeroenFiled under: .NET, C, C#, C++, Delphi, Development, Software Development

Comments are closed.