Float addition promoted to double?
- by Andreas Brinck
I had a small WTF moment this morning. Ths WTF can be summarized with this:
float x = 0.2f;
float y = 0.1f;
float z = x + y;
assert(z == x + y); //This assert is triggered! (Atleast with visual studio 2008)
The reason seems to be that the expression x + y is promoted to double and compared with the truncated version in z. (If i change z to double the assert isn't triggered).
I can see that for precision reasons it would make sense to perform all floating point arithmetics in double precision before converting the result to single precision. I found the following paragraph in the standard (which I guess I sort of already knew, but not in this context):
4.6.1.
"An rvalue of type float can be converted to an rvalue of type double. The value is unchanged"
My question is, is x + y guaranteed to be promoted to double or is at the compiler's discretion?
UPDATE: Since many people has claimed that one shouldn't use == for floating point, I just wanted to state that in the specific case I'm working with, an exact comparison is justified.
Floating point comparision is tricky, here's an interesting link on the subject which I think hasn't been mentioned.
