OK, enough just playing around with ChatGPT; let’s see if it can write some code:
Continue reading “ChatGPT Writes Decent Code For Binary to Decimal Conversion”
Tag: Code
Jetpack Compose Byte Converter App: 2022 Version
I wrote a simple byte to decimal converter app less than two months into starting to learn Jetpack Compose. Now that I have more experience with Compose — in developing a real app and by participating on the #compose channel on Slack (login required) — I wanted to update this demo app to reflect my current understanding of best practices.
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Anomalies In IntelliJ Kotlin Floating-Point Literal Inspection
IntelliJ IDEA has a code inspection for Kotlin that will warn you if a decimal floating-point literal exceeds the precision of its type (Float or Double). It will suggest an equivalent literal (one that maps to the same binary floating-point number) that has fewer digits, or has the same number of digits but is closer to the floating-point number.
For Doubles for example, every literal over 17-digits should be flagged, since it never takes more than 17 digits to specify any double-precision binary floating-point value. Literals with 16 or 17 digits should be flagged if there is a replacement that is shorter or closer. And no literal with 15 digits or fewer should ever be flagged, since doubles have of 15-digits of precision.
But IntelliJ doesn’t always adhere to that, like when it suggests an 18-digit replacement for a 13-digit literal!
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A Simple Binary To Decimal Converter App In Jetpack Compose
I’ve been learning Jetpack Compose and Kotlin (and Android for that matter) so I decided to create a simple binary conversion app to demonstrate how easy it is to create (at least basic) UI in Compose.
(This app has been updated; see Jetpack Compose Byte Converter App: 2022 Version.)
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Direct Generation of Double Rounding Error Conversions in Kotlin
For my recent search for short examples of double rounding errors in decimal to double to float conversions I wrote a Kotlin program to generate and test random decimal strings. While this was sufficient to find examples, I realized I could do a more direct search by generating only decimal strings with the underlying double rounding error bit patterns. I’ll show you the Java BigDecimal based Kotlin program I wrote for this purpose.
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Double Rounding Errors in Decimal to Double to Float Conversions
In my previous exploration of double rounding errors in decimal to float conversions I showed two decimal numbers that experienced a double rounding error when converted to float (single-precision) through an intermediate double (double-precision). I generated the examples indirectly by setting bit combinations that forced the error, using their corresponding exact decimal representations. As a result, the decimal numbers were long (55 digits each). Mark Dickinson derived a much shorter 17 digit example, but I hadn’t contemplated how to generate even shorter numbers — or whether they existed at all — until Per Vognsen wrote me recently to ask.
The easiest way for me to approach Per’s question was to search for examples, rather than try to find a way to construct them. As such, I wrote a simple Kotlin1 program to generate decimal strings and check them. I tested all float-range (including subnormal) decimal numbers of 9 digits or fewer, and tens of billions of random 10 to 17 digit float-range (normal only) numbers. I found example 7 to 17 digit numbers that, when converted to float through a double, suffer a double rounding error.
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Maximum Number of Decimal Digits In Binary Floating-Point Numbers
I’ve written about the formulas used to compute the number of decimal digits in a binary integer and the number of decimal digits in a binary fraction. In this article, I’ll use those formulas to determine the maximum number of digits required by the double-precision (double), single-precision (float), and quadruple-precision (quad) IEEE binary floating-point formats.
The maximum digit counts are useful if you want to print the full decimal value of a floating-point number (worst case format specifier and buffer size) or if you are writing or trying to understand a decimal to floating-point conversion routine (worst case number of input digits that must be converted).
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Java Doesn’t Print The Shortest Strings That Round-Trip
I’ve always thought Java was one of the languages that prints the shortest decimal strings that round-trip back to floating-point. I was wrong.
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The Safe Range For PHP’s base_convert()
PHP’s base_convert() is a useful function that converts integers between any pair of bases, 2 through 36. However, you might hesitate to use it after reading this vague and mysterious warning in its documentation:
base_convert() may lose precision on large numbers due to properties related to the internal “double” or “float” type used.
The truth is that it works perfectly for integers up to a certain maximum — you just have to know what that is. I will show you this maximum value in each of the 35 bases, and how to check if the values you are using are within this limit.
Decimal/Binary Conversion of Integers in App Inventor
To complete my exploration of numbers in App Inventor, I’ve written an app that converts integers between decimal and binary. It uses the standard algorithms, which I’ve just translated into blocks.
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App Inventor Computes With Big Integers
I recently wrote that App Inventor represents its numbers in floating-point. I’ve since discovered something curious about integers. When typed into math blocks, they are represented in floating-point; but when generated through calculations, they are represented as arbitrary-precision integers — big integers.
Testing Some Edge Case Conversions In App Inventor
After discovering that App Inventor represents numbers in floating-point, I wanted to see how it handled some edge case decimal/floating-point conversions. In one group of tests, I gave it numbers that were converted to floating-point incorrectly in other programming languages (I include the famous PHP and Java numbers). In another group of tests, I gave it numbers that, when converted to floating-point and back, demonstrate the rounding algorithm used when printing halfway cases. It turns out that App Inventor converts all examples correctly, and prints numbers using the round-half-to-even rule.
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