Floating point math issues

Floating-point is an approximation to the real number system

One important thing to remember when writing computer programs is that floating-point mathematics is never exact but is only an approximation. In most programming languages, floating-point real numbers are composed of groups of 4 or 8 bytes. This means that floating-point numbers are not infinitely precise, but have a maximum precision. As a consequence, floating-point math operations (especially multiplication and division) can often lead to different results than one would normally anticipate.

Here are the common number types used in both IDL and Fortran:

IDL Number Type	Fortran Equivalent	Number of bytes	Approx. range
byte	BYTE	1	0 to 255
fix	INTEGER*2	2	0 - 32767
long	INTEGER*4	4	0 - 2000000000
float	REAL*4	4	-1e-38 to 1e+38
double	REAL*8	8	-1e-312 to 1e+312

Note that you cannot represent numbers to -Infinity or +Infinity. Each number type is composed of a finite number of bytes, and can only represent numbers within a given range, as listed in the above table.

Here are some excellent references about floating-point math:

• The Perils of Floating Point by Bruce M. Bush
• Fun with Floating Point Arithmetic

Safe floating-point division

Due to the approximate nature of floating-point mathematics, you need to take special precautions when dividing by small numbers. Division by zero is of course not allowed. However, under certain circumstances, the quotient of the division might not fall in the range of representable numbers.

For example, if you divided a very big number by a very small number:

     REAL*4 :: A, B
     A = 1e20
     B = 1e-20
     PRINT*, A/B

then this will result in +Infinity because the order of magnitude of the answer (1e40) is not representable with a REAL*4 variable (max value ~ 1e38).

Therefore it is adviseable to use "safe division" in certain critical computations where you might have very small denominators. The algorithm is described below:

From http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.fortran/browse_thread/thread/8b367f44c419fa1d/

Thank you to all that offered their suggestions for a "safe division" routine to prevent overflow. For those that are curious about the solution to the problem, I found useful to adopt a subroutine along the lines suggested by William Long:

    if(exponent(a) - exponent (b) >= maxexponent(a) .OR. b==0)Then 
     q=altv 
    else 
     q=a/b 
    endif 

The = in the >= is to take into account the case when the fractional part of a is 1.111... and that of b is 1.

It works very well.

Thank you again,

Julio.

Therefore, in other words, we test if the order of magnitude of the result is in the allowable range for the given number type. If it is not, then instead of doing the division, we return the alternate value as the result. NOTE: The alternate value that you substitute depends on the type of computation that you are doing...there is no "one-size-fits-all" substitute value.

We have implemented the above algorithm into GEOS-Chem. See routine SAFE_DIV in error_mod.f:

      FUNCTION SAFE_DIV( N, D, ALTV ) RESULT( Q )
!
!******************************************************************************
!  Subroutine SAFE_DIV performs "safe division", that is to prevent overflow,
!  underflow, NaN, or infinity errors.  An alternate value is returned if the 
!  division cannot be performed. (bmy, 2/26/08)
!
!  For more information, see the discussion on: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.fortran/browse_thread/thread/8b367f44c419fa1d/
!
!  Arguments as Input:
!  ============================================================================
!  (1 ) N    : Numerator for the division 
!  (2 ) D    : Divisor for the division
!  (3 ) ALTV : Alternate value to be returned if the division can't be done
!
!  NOTES: 
!******************************************************************************
!
      ! Arguments
      REAL*8, INTENT(IN) :: N, D, ALTV
     
      ! Function value
      REAL*8             :: Q

      !==================================================================
      ! SAFE_DIV begins here! 
      !==================================================================
      IF ( EXPONENT(N) - EXPONENT(D) >= MAXEXPONENT(N) .or. D==0 ) THEN
         Q = ALTV
      ELSE
         Q = N / D
      ENDIF

      ! Return to calling program
      END FUNCTION SAFE_DIV

Testing for equality

If you are working with integer-valued numbers, then you can use the equality operator

• In Fortran: "==", ".eq."
• In IDL: "eq"

directly to test if a variable is equal to a given value, e.g.

      INTEGER :: A

      A = 1

      IF ( A == 1 ) THEN
         PRINT*, 'A is 1'
      ELSE
         PRINT*, 'A is not 1'
      ENDIF

Then you would get the result

> A is 1

This is because integers are always exactly +/- 0, 1, 2, 3, ...

However, if you are working with floating-point numbers (REAL*4 or REAL*8), then you have to be a little bit more careful. Recall from the previous section that floating-point numbers are not represented with infinite precision. Therefore, if you try to do the following equality test:

      REAL*8 :: A

      A = 1d0 / 3d0 

      IF ( A == 0.333d0 ) THEN
         PRINT*, 'A is 1/3'
      ELSE
         PRINT*, 'A is not 1/3 but is ', A   
      ENDIF 
  

You will get the result:

 A is not 1/3 but is   0.333333333333333

This is because A is a repeating decimal 0.33333...3 up to the limit of the precision of the machine. However, we tested for 0.333 and not 0.33333...3. This is why the equality test failed.

TIP: You should never use a direct equality test with floating-point real numbers!

A better way to test for equality is to use the greater-than or less-than operators

• In Fortran: ">", ".gt.", "<", ".lt."
• In IDL: "gt", "lt"

in the following manner:

      REAL*8 :: A
      
      A = 1d0/3d0

      IF ( A > 1d0/3d0 .or. A < 1d0/3d0 ) THEN
         PRINT*, 'A is not 1d0/3d0 but is ', A
      ELSE
         PRINT*, 'A is exactly 1d0/3d0'
      ENDIF

Which gives:

 A is exactly 1d0/3d0

In many instances it is necessary to take appropriate action if a number is zero (for example, to avoid a division by zero error). A simple test is as follows:

      REAL*8 :: A
      
      A = 0d0

      IF ( ABS( A ) > 0d0 ) THEN
         PRINT*, 'A is not 0 but is ', A
      ELSE
         PRINT*, 'A is exactly 0'
      ENDIF

Note that we have used the mathematical relation ABS( x ) > a, which is true if x > a or x < -a. This test will reject all numbers that are not exactly 0.

--Bmy 12:47, 9 April 2008 (EDT)