Floating-Point Types
Floating-Point Types Floating-point numbers, also known as real numbers, are used when evaluating expressions that require fractional precision. For example, calculations such as square root, ortranscendentals such as sine and cosine, result in a value whose precision requires a floating-point type. Java implements the standard (IEEE–754) set of floating-point types and operators. There are two kinds of floating-point types, float and double, which represent single- and double-precision numbers, respectively. Their width and ranges are shown here: Name Width in Bits Approximate Range double 64 4.9e–324 to 1.8e+308 float 32 1.4e–045 to 3.4e+038 Each of these floating-point types is examined next. float The type float specifies a single-precision value that uses 32 bits of storage. Single precision is faster on some processors and takes half as much space as double precision, but will become imprecise when the values are either very large or very small. Variables of ty...