DataType
Double
Description
A Double is an intrinsic data type. A Double is a number that can contain a decimal value, i.e., a real number. In other languages, a Double may be referred to as a Double precision floating point number. Because Doubles are numbers, you can perform mathematical calculations on them. Doubles use 8 bytes of memory. The default value of a Double is 0.0.
Methods
Name |
Parameters |
Returns |
Shared |
---|---|---|---|
numValue As Double, maxUIps As Integer |
|||
Double |
✓ |
||
Double |
✓ |
||
Method descriptions
Double.Equals
Equals(numValue As Double, maxUIps As Integer) As Boolean
Tests whether two Single or Double numbers are equal within a specified tolerance.
Use Equals rather than = when you need to determine whether two floating point numbers are close enough in value to be considered “equal.” This can be used to account for the imprecision of floating point division on computers, for example. It allows for a user-specified rounding error.
For maxUIps, the last position refers to the the last byte in the binary representation of the mantissa. maxUIps is the amount of difference between the last byte of the 2 numbers that is still acceptable. For example, consider these 2 numbers:
3.1415926535897932 ' last byte value is 0x18
3.141592653589795 ' last byte value is 0x1C
A maxUIps of 3 will result in "not equal", while a maxUIps of 4 will result in "equal".
More information: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/comparing-floating-point-numbers-2012-edition/
Compare two values:
' 2 double values that vary by a tiny bit
Var d1 As Double = 3.1415926535897935
Var d2 As Double = 3.1415926535897933
If d1 = d2 Then
' Will not get here because they are not an exact match
End If
If d1.Equals(d2, 1) Then
' Will get here because they are "close enough"
End If
Double.FromString
FromString(value As String, locale As Locale = Nil) As Double
Converts a String value containing a number that can be represented as a Double to a Double value.
This method is shared.
If no locale is specified, then Locale.Raw is used.
Convert values to the Double type:
Var userValue As String
userValue = "123.45"
Var d As Double
d = Double.FromString(userValue)
Var locale As New Locale("en-US")
Var value As Double
userValue = "123.45"
value = Double.FromString(userValue, locale) ' value = 123.45
Double.IsInfinite
IsInfinite As Boolean
Returns True if the value is infinite.
Double.IsNotANumber
IsNotANumber As Boolean
Returns True if the value is Not-A-Number.
Double.Parse
Parse(value As String, locale As Locale = Nil) As Double
Converts a String to a Double value.
This method is shared.
If no locale is specified, then Locale.Raw is used.
Numbers are converted only if they are found at the beginning of the text. Any numbers that follow a non-numeric value are ignored. Empty text returns 0.
Var d As Double
d = Double.Parse("123ABC")
' d = 123
Double.ToString
ToString(locale As Locale = Nil, Optional format As String) As String
Converts a Double value to a String value using the supplied locale and format.
If no locale is specified, then Locale.Raw is used.
Refer to Unicode Number Format Patterns for a list of formats.
Convert Double values to String values:
Var d As Double = 123.45
Var s As String
s = d.ToString ' s = "123.45"
Var n As Double = 1239.4567
Var s1 As String = n.ToString(Locale.Current, "#,###.##") ' s1 = 1,239.46
Var n2 As Double = 12
Var s2 As String = n.ToString(Locale.Current, "#.00") ' s2 = 12.00
Notes
Double is an IEEE Double-precision, floating-point value. This means it is speedy but has some limits for values it can contain. For more information, refer to the wikipedia page about floating point or the Floating Point Primer blog post.
In most situations you should use Currency when dealing with monetary values.
The VarType function returns a value of 5 when passed a Double.
Numerical limits
The maximum value of a Double is: ±1.79769313486231570814527423731704357e+308
The minimum value towards zero is: ±4.94065645841246544176568792868221372e-324
Nan and infinity
Doubles can hold some special values described below: * NaN (i.e. "Not a Number"): occurs if you attempted to perform an illegal mathematical operation, like getting the square root of a negative number. Any further calculation made with a NaN will lead to a NaN value. Str or Format methods return a string beginning with "NaN", e.g. "NaN(021)". * Infinity: some calculations lead to an infinite result (positive or negative), e.g. Log( 0 ), or you may exceed the maximum value which can be hold. In such a case, a Double will be set to a special value, whose Str will return "INF" (for INFinity) or "-INF" (negative INFinity). Any further calculation will lead to a NaN or infinity value.
You can test for these values using the IsNotANumber and IsInfinite methods.
Sample code
The Double data type allows you to store and manage floating point numbers.
Var d As Double
d = 3.141592653
Compatibility
All project types on all supported operating systems.