Not understanding floating points
The concept of floating point numbers was created to solve the problem that integer values cannot represent fractional numbers. Floating point numbers are an approximation of real numbers due to the fact that their is an infinite number of fractions between two integers.
Mistake
Failing to understand the lack of precision with floating point numbers. Using
conditional comparisons like == can result in unexpected behavior.
Fix
- When comparing floating point numbers, check that the difference is within an acceptable range
- When performing additions or subtractions, group operations with a similar order of magnitude for better accuracy.
- to favor accuracy, if a sequence of operations requires addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, perform the multiplication and division operations first.