Re: strange rounding of an arithmetic serie

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014, Frédéric Parrenin wrote:

> If I type 0 in A1 and 0.1 in A2, select A1:A2 and then drag the bottom
> right corner, I get:
> 0
> 0.1
> 0.2
> 0.3
> 0.4
> 0.5
> 0.6000000000000001
>
> I am using 1.12.14 on a linux 64 bit machine.
>
> Is this a known issue?
> If yes, what is the corresponding bug report?

Yes, it's a very well known issue, but there's no corresponding bug 
report -- because the issue is the inherently finite precision of 
computer arithmetic. The "double" datatype comprises 64 bits and 
cannot model the real line. You've just discovered that 0.6000... 
(with an arbitrary number of trailing zeros) is not a number that can 
be exactly represented by a double.

Allin Cottrell