Hacker News Reader

Also fixed point math is more accurate than floating point math in computers, also it is easy to accomplish. Even 32bit numbers can be very big/small when a struct of 2 32bit integers is used, one for the number and one for the exponent.

View on HN

If you have a variable exponent, then don't you have a floating-point representation by definition?

Fixed point. In this case, 32.32

It's true that that's not an exponent, though, and that was what they were replying to. Exponents make floating point. I think the poster before that meant to say "fractional part" instead.

Either you've got a 64 bit fixed point number, 64Q32 or you just invented your own floating point format, and it's not clear which you're trying to describe.

Fixed point math is common in software made for business applications because of rounding problems with binary floating point math.

The following link is an example of a good quality fixed point math library and shows you how it is done.

https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/shopspring/decimal?utm_source=...

You are explaining to me something in which I am already an expert. Thank you! Buenbot!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com