Re: [xsl] Re: XSLT 2.0 Decimal number silliness

[Jeff Kenton <jkenton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rowland Shaw wrote:
> Maybe I'm being really dumb here, but what is the difference between a
> decimal number and a floating point number?

Decimals are potentially infinite precision decimal numbers.  Minimum precision is 18 decimal digits.  This means that 0.444 and 0.666 are exactly represented as decimals, even though their floating point representations are approximate.

> From the Schema spec:

3.2.3 decimal

[Definition:]  decimal represents a subset of the real numbers, which can be represented by decimal numerals. The 7value space7 of decimal is the set of numbers that can be obtained by multiplying an integer by a non-positive power of ten, i.e., expressible as i W 10^-n where i and n are integers and n >= 0.