2.4: Float
- Page ID
- 430739
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A floating type represenation using an encoding scheme similiar to scientific notation. The first byte represents the exponent and the remaining represent the prexponential, with one bite reserved for the sign.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): floating decimal representation for 32 bit binary encoding. (Copyright; belford cc 0.0)The following table gives the range of values for floating systems in 32 and 64 bit binary encoding.
| Format | Total bits | Significand bits | Exponent bits | Smallest Number | Largest Number |
| Single precision | 32 | 23 + sign | 8 | ca. 1.2 x10-38 | ca. 3.4 x1038 |
| double precision | 64 | 52 + sign | 11 | ca. 2.2 x10-308 | ca. 1.8 x10308 |