Computer number format: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:54, 21 September 2020

Revision as of 02:06, 27 December 2020

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Programming in [[assembly language]] requires the programmer to keep track of the representation of numbers. Where the processor does not support a required mathematical operation, the programmer must work out a suitable algorithm and instruction sequence to carry out the operation; on some microprocessors, even integer multiplication must be done in software.

High-level [[programming language]]s such as [[LispRuby (programming language)|LISPRuby]] and [[Python (programming language)|Python]] offer an abstract number that may be an expanded type such as ''rational'', ''bignum'', or ''complex''. Mathematical operations are carried out by library routines provided by the implementation of the language. A given mathematical symbol in the source code, by [[operator overloading]], will invoke different object code appropriate to the representation of the numerical type; mathematical operations on any number—whether signed, unsigned, rational, floating-point, fixed-point, integral, or complex—are written exactly the same way.

Some languages, such as [[REXX]] and [[Java (programming language)|Java]], provide decimal floating points operations, which provide rounding errors of a different form.