[Scilab-users] Increase Computing Precision beyon Double // Big Integers?

[Sandro Hardy]

Hello everyone,

is it there a way to increase the computing precision in Scilab beyond 
the regular "double precision"?

In Scilab this example gives me a wrong result:
-->290017/10000
  ans  =

     29.001699999999999590727

R is more accurate (Matlab also):
 > 290017/10000
[1] 29.0017

In R I can even increase the precison:
 > options(digits=10)

Is this also possible with Scilab?

Similar question for big numbers, is there a "standard" solution for 
this (BigIntegers)?

In Scilab:
-->a=635037699992127443
  a  =

     635037699992127488.

-->b=635037699992127444
  b  =

     635037699992127488.

-->a-b
  ans  =

     0.

I would expect a warning, but I get get a wrong result. At least the 
output gives me the hint, that the variable was not set accurately.

The solution is called bigz in R (VPI in Matlab) and work like this:

 > a=as.bigz('635037699992127443');
 > b=as.bigz('635037699992127444');
 > a-b
Big Integer ('bigz') :
[1] -1

Thanks in advance for any hints.

Sandro


-- 
Sandro Hardy, M.Sc.

Multimedia Communications Lab (KOM)
http://www.kom.tu-darmstadt.de
Technische Universitaet Darmstadt
Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Information Technology
tel: +49 6151 16 75164 fax: +49 6151 16 6152
E-Mail: Sandro.Hardy at kom.tu-darmstadt.de
postal address: TU Darmstadt, FB 18, KOM, Rundeturmstr. 10, S320/106
D-64283 Darmstadt, Germany