[clean-list] Re: (clean-list digest:) Functions that look the same (smithll)

[Siegfried Gonzi]

John van Groningen wrote:

> Actually I count 15 significant digits, one before and 14 after the dot.
> There are 52 significant bits in a 64-bit floating point value, so there are
> 15 significant digits.

Sorry I was imprecise. I meant 14 places after the comma. I thought a 52-bit
mantissa is capable of  handling 15 places (or 16 places in general) after the
comma. At least I can read that in the book: "Einfuehrung in die Informatik fuer
Naturwissenschaftler und Ingenieure" (U. Rembrand, P. Levi).

Sure, I never have needed the last few digits in a computation. But for example
Mops (Forth for the Mac) prints 64-bit floating point digits with 16 places (in
general) and in the accompanying manual one can read that they obey the IEEE
standard.

Has Clean some kind of guard digit?


S. Gonzi