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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