• NAME
• SYNOPSIS
• DESCRIPTION
• BUGS
• AUTHOR

NAME

Math::BigFloat - Arbitrary length float math package

SYNOPSIS

  use Math::BigFloat;
  $f = Math::BigFloat->new($string);

  $f->fadd(NSTR) return NSTR            addition
  $f->fsub(NSTR) return NSTR            subtraction
  $f->fmul(NSTR) return NSTR            multiplication
  $f->fdiv(NSTR[,SCALE]) returns NSTR   division to SCALE places
  $f->fneg() return NSTR                negation
  $f->fabs() return NSTR                absolute value
  $f->fcmp(NSTR) return CODE            compare undef,<0,=0,>0
  $f->fround(SCALE) return NSTR         round to SCALE digits
  $f->ffround(SCALE) return NSTR        round at SCALEth place
  $f->fnorm() return (NSTR)             normalize
  $f->fsqrt([SCALE]) return NSTR        sqrt to SCALE places

DESCRIPTION

All basic math operations are overloaded if you declare your big floats as

    $float = new Math::BigFloat "2.123123123123123123123123123123123";

number format

canonical strings have the form /[+-]\d+E[+-]\d+/ . Input values can have inbedded whitespace.

Error returns 'NaN'

An input parameter was ``Not a Number'' or divide by zero or sqrt of negative number.

Division is computed to

max($div_scale,length(dividend)+length(divisor)) digits by default. Also used for default sqrt scale.

BUGS

The current version of this module is a preliminary version of the real thing that is currently (as of perl5.002) under development.

AUTHOR

Mark Biggar

DISCLAIMER

If rather than formatting bugs, you encounter substantive content errors in these documents, such as mistakes in the explanations or code, please use the perlbug utility included with the Perl distribution.

--Tom Christiansen, Perl Documentation Compiler and Editor