quote:
No doubt, 7.0 is integer in math. But if people can write 7 why people
need to write 7.0 (I do not see any reason to do this).
endquote
First off, in physics, engineering, chem, etc. there is a well-known
rule that 7 implies an error of +/- 0.5 while 7.0 implies an error of
+/-0.05 . (actually, the preferred notation is x.yEz so that the
physical size of the number doesn't cause a bunch of zeroes to imply
false precision)
Next, aside from storage reasons (if you're writing machine code or
comms packet code), there are times when one wishes to stay in the
integer world as opposed to the floating-point world. There's tons of
literature out there about binary representation of floats,
binary-coded-decimal, and on and on.
Carl
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