Op Sun, 28 Oct 2007, schreef Adriaan van Os:
> Daniël Mantione wrote:
>
> > N - Natural numbers
> > Z - Integer numbers
> > Q - Rational numbers
> > R - Real numbers
> > C - Complex numbers
> >
> > Subranges of N, Z and Q can be represented exactly in a computer.
>
> > R and C
> > can not, we use the floating point system as approximation.
>
> This is big nonsense.
Why? There exists no data structure that can hold any number from R or C.
> The issue is not if they can be "represented in a
> computer" but that a 10-base decimal fraction can not be represented exactly
> in a 2-base floating point format.
Indeed, and this is because the 2-base floating format is an approximation
of R, while the datatype name "real" gives the impression that the
datatype can hold the real numbers.
Daniël
_______________________________________________
fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org
http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
