R floating point number precision being lost on coversion from character

Question

I have a large floating point number as a character like so

  x<-\"5374761693.91823\";

On doing

 as.numeric(x); 
         


        

Answer 1

use digits argument in print to see the actual number:

> print(as.numeric(x), digits=15)
[1] 5374761693.91823

options is another alternative:

> options(digits=16)
> as.numeric(x)
[1] 5374761693.91823

> # assignments
> options(digits=16)
> y <- as.numeric(x)
> y
[1] 5374761693.91823

z <- print(as.numeric(x), digits=15)
z