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number_properties

determine floating-point parameters

Syntax

pr = number_properties(prop)

Arguments

prop

string

pr

real or boolean scalar

Description

This function may be used to get the characteristic numbers/properties of the floating point set denoted here by F(b,p,emin,emax) (usually the 64 bits float numbers set prescribe by IEEE 754). Numbers of F are of the form:

sign * m * b^e

e is the exponent and m the mantissa:

$$
            m = d_1 \cdot b^{-1} + d_2 \cdot b^{-2} + \ldots + d_p \cdot b^{-p}
            $$

$d_i$ the digits are in [0, b-1] and e in [emin, emax], the number is said "normalized" if $d_1 \neq 0$. The following queries may be used:

prop = "radix"

then pr is the radix b of the set F

prop = "digits"

then pr is the number of digits p

prop = "huge"

then pr is the max positive float of F

prop = "tiny"

then pr is the min positive normalized float of F

prop = "denorm"

then pr is a boolean (%t if denormalized numbers are used)

prop = "tiniest"

then if denorm = %t, pr is the min positive denormalized number else pr = tiny

prop = "eps"

then pr is the epsilon machine ( generally ($\dfrac{b^{1-p}}{2}$) which is the relative max error between a real x (such than |x| in [tiny, huge]) and fl(x), its floating point approximation in F

prop = "minexp"

then pr is emin

prop = "maxexp"

then pr is emax

This function uses the lapack routine dlamch to get the machine parameters (the names (radix, digit, huge, etc...) are those recommended by the LIA 1 standard and are different from the corresponding lapack's ones).
Sometimes you can see the following definition for the epsilon machine : $eps = b^{1-p}$ but in this function we use the traditional one (see prop = "eps" before) and so $eps = \dfrac{b^{1-p}}{2}$ if normal rounding occurs, and $eps = b^{1-p}$ otherwise.

Examples

b = number_properties("radix")
eps = number_properties("eps")

See also

  • nearfloat — get previous or next floating-point number
  • log2 — Base-2 logarithm. Base-2 exponent and mantissa of some real numbers
  • -0 — Processing of -0 versus 0
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Last updated:
Mon Jun 17 17:49:15 CEST 2024