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Asked: 2026-05-24T19:39:13+00:00

I just learned from Peter Lawreys post that this is valid expression, and evaluates

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I just learned from Peter Lawreys post that this is valid expression, and evaluates to true.

333333333333333.33d == 333333333333333.3d

My question is, why is it allowed to have double literals which can’t be represented in a double, while integer literals that can’t be represented are disallowed. What is the rationale for this decision.

A side note, I can actually trigger out of range compile error for doubles literals 🙂

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999d

So as long as we’re in (min, max) range, the literal gets approximated, but when going outside of that, it seems the compiler refuses to approximate it.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The problem is that very few decimals that you might type can be represented exactly as an IEEE float. So if you removed all non-exact constants you would make using double literals very unwieldy. Most of the time the behaviour of “pretend we can represent it” is far more useful.

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