Re: Modify value - type duration

["Jeffrey R. Carter" <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.acm.org>]

Adam Beneschan wrote:
> 
> Hmmm ... now I wonder why there isn't a Truncation attribute for fixed-
> point types?  Maybe nobody before Andreas ever thought they'd need
> one.  Might be useful.  (Also Floor, Ceiling.)

No, I wondered about that long ago.

> A possible problem with the floating-point conversion solution is that
> there may be cases where you lose accuracy---if, e.g., the largest
> floating-point type and fixed-point systems supported on the machine
> are both 64 bits.  Since a floating-point number needs room for an
> exponent, it's possible to define a fixed-point type with more bits in
> the integer part than can be represented in the mantissa of a floating-
> point type, e.g.

One must always be careful in such cases that the conversion will not fail or 
lose important bits.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"You a big nose have it."
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
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