Help regarding "format long"
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i am trying to solve a=(4:0.0002:4.20) with format long, but i am getting weird values and not accurated ones like 4.196000000000001 4.196200000000000 4.196400000000001 4.196600000000000 4.196800000000001
But it should be like this 4.196000000000000 4.196200000000000 4.196400000000000 4.196600000000000 4.196800000000000
why matlab is not giving me accurate answer and adding 0.000000000000001 at alternative figures.
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Accepted Answer
Matt Tearle
on 26 Feb 2011
Welcome to the joy of round-off error. 0.0002 is not exactly representable in binary, hence adding these floating point numbers causes error at the level of machine precision. Enter eps(4) to see what machine precision is for these values.
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More Answers (2)
James Tursa
on 26 Feb 2011
You may also find the num2strexact utility to be of some help in understanding this. e.g.,
>> num2strexact(4.196)
ans =
4.1959999999999997299937604111619293689727783203125
>> num2strexact(4.1962)
ans =
4.19620000000000015205614545266143977642059326171875
>>
You can find the num2strexact utility here:
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