gawk: Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic

 
 15 Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with 'gawk'
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 This major node introduces some basic concepts relating to how computers
 do arithmetic and defines some important terms.  It then proceeds to
 describe floating-point arithmetic, which is what 'awk' uses for all its
 computations, including a discussion of arbitrary-precision
 floating-point arithmetic, which is a feature available only in 'gawk'.
 It continues on to present arbitrary-precision integers, and concludes
 with a description of some points where 'gawk' and the POSIX standard
 are not quite in agreement.
 
      NOTE: Most users of 'gawk' can safely skip this chapter.  But if
      you want to do scientific calculations with 'gawk', this is the
      place to be.
 

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