Retain precision with double in Java

Question

public class doublePrecision {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        double total = 0;
        total += 5.6;
        total += 5.8;
        System.out         


        

Answer 1

You may want to look into using java's java.math.BigDecimal class if you really need precision math. Here is a good article from Oracle/Sun on the case for BigDecimal. While you can never represent 1/3 as someone mentioned, you can have the power to decide exactly how precise you want the result to be. setScale() is your friend.. :)

Ok, because I have way too much time on my hands at the moment here is a code example that relates to your question:

import java.math.BigDecimal;
/**
 * Created by a wonderful programmer known as:
 * Vincent Stoessel
 * xaymaca@gmail.com
 * on Mar 17, 2010 at  11:05:16 PM
 */
public class BigUp {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        BigDecimal first, second, result ;
        first = new BigDecimal("33.33333333333333")  ;
        second = new BigDecimal("100") ;
        result = first.divide(second);
        System.out.println("result is " + result);
       //will print : result is 0.3333333333333333


    }
}

and to plug my new favorite language, Groovy, here is a neater example of the same thing:

import java.math.BigDecimal

def  first =   new BigDecimal("33.33333333333333")
def second = new BigDecimal("100")


println "result is " + first/second   // will print: result is 0.33333333333333