Xref: utzoo comp.lang.misc:3506 comp.arch:11492
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!maxim!prc
From: prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Fast conversions, another urban myth?
Message-ID: <826@maxim.erbe.se>
Date: 24 Sep 89 10:50:22 GMT
References: <832@dms.UUCP> <688@UALTAVM.BITNET> <136@bbxsda.UUCP> <4125@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <150@bbxsda.UUCP>
Reply-To: prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson)
Followup-To: comp.lang.misc
Organization: ERBE DATA AB, Jarfalla, Sweden
Lines: 20

In article <150@bbxsda.UUCP> scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes:

>>I have never done business-oriented calculations, but  it seems to me,
>>as an outsider, that calculating everything in pennies solves the round-off
>>problems (but perhaps no others), doesn't it?

>Because sometimes you need 3, 4, or more decimals places for calculations,
>especially in some interest calculations.  People have inventories where
>the unit price of a small item is a fraction of a penny (such items
>are bought in *large* quantities).

Or, because sometimes you need to count many billions of amounts (I didn't
say dollars because that's not what we count; however, the problem is the
same) with 3, 4 or even more decimal places.

Gimme a library of accurate, infinite-precision arithmetic routines, anytime.

-- 
          Robert Claeson      E-mail: rclaeson@erbe.se
	  ERBE DATA AB