Re: Ada decimal types

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"REH" <me@you.com> wrote in message
news:yj47g.23728$ZQ3.20636@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
...
Also, duration is a binary fixed point.
> A don't want to use those because precision may be lost.  Whether or not
the
> loss will be an issue, I do not know but I would rather not risk it.  Of
> course I just may be worrying over nothing.

You're still very confused. Semantically, there is no difference between

    type Mission_Time_Type is delta 1.0e-6 range 0.0 .. (2.0**32) - 1.0;
    for Mission_Time_Type'Small use 1.0e-6;

and

    type Mission_Time_Type is delta 1.0e-6 digits 14;

other than the bounds of the base type and the rounding of the "*" and "/"
operations. The *precision* is identical, because that depends *only* on the
value of 'small [for all fixed point types], and that is the same for both
of these types. [There might be representation differences, but those can't
change the semantics of the types.]

Of course, specifying the small is necessary to get the appropriate
precision for the ordinary fixed point type (as the default is not what you
want). But that is always a good idea with fixed point; it's too important
of a choice to leave it to the compiler, and it is best to document it
explicitly in the source code.

                                Randy.