Conversion Functions

You can use conversion (see Jenks section 9.27.2) to go back and forth between Integer, Fraction(Integer) and Float, as appropriate.

Since you are explicitly asking for a conversion, you must take responsibility for any loss of exactness.

This conversion cannot be performed: use truncate or round if that is what you intend.

The operations truncate and round truncate ...

and round to the nearest integral Float respectively.

The operation fractionPart computes the fractional part of x, that is, x-truncate x.

The operation digits allows the user to set the precision. It returns the previous value it was using.

The precision is only limited by the computer memory available. Calculations at 500 or more digits of precision are not difficult.

Reset digits to its default value.

Numbers of type Float are represented as a record of two integers, namely, the mantissa and the exponent where the base of the exponent is binary. That is, the floating point number of the binary. That is, the floating point number (m,e) represents the number m*2**e. A consequence of using a binary base is that decimal numbers can not, in general, be represented exactly.