Double Structure

When performing binary operations, if one of the operands is a Double, then the other operand is required to be an integral type or a floating-point type (Double or Single). Prior to performing the operation, if the other operand is not a Double, it is converted to Double, and the operation is performed using at least Double range and precision. If the operation produces a numeric result, the type of the result is Double.

The floating-point operators, including the assignment operators, do not throw exceptions. Instead, in exceptional situations the result of a floating-point operation is zero, infinity, or NaN, as described below:

• If the result of a floating-point operation is too small for the destination format, the result of the operation is zero.

• If the magnitude of the result of a floating-point operation is too large for the destination format, the result of the operation is PositiveInfinity or NegativeInfinity, as appropriate for the sign of the result.

• If a floating-point operation is invalid, the result of the operation is NaN.

• If one or both operands of a floating-point operation are NaN, the result of the operation is NaN.

Remember that a floating-point number can only approximate a decimal number, and that the precision of a floating-point number determines how accurately that number approximates a decimal number. By default, a Double value contains 15 decimal digits of precision, although a maximum of 17 digits is maintained internally. The precision of a floating-point number has several consequences:

• Two floating-point numbers that appear equal for a particular precision might not compare equal because their least significant digits are different.

• A mathematical or comparison operation that uses a floating-point number might not yield the same result if a decimal number is used because the floating-point number might not exactly approximate the decimal number.

• A value might not roundtrip if a floating-point number is involved. A value is said to roundtrip if an operation converts an original floating-point number to another form, an inverse operation transforms the converted form back to a floating-point number, and the final floating-point number is equal to the original floating-point number. The roundtrip might fail because one or more least significant digits are lost or changed in a conversion.

In addition, the result of arithmetic and assignment operations with Double values may differ slightly by platform because of the loss of precision of the Double type. For example, the result of assigning a literal Double value may differ in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the .NET Framework. The following example illustrates this difference when the literal value -4.42330604244772E-305 and a variable whose value is -4.42330604244772E-305 are assigned to a Double variable. Note that the result of the Parse(String) method in this case does not suffer from a loss of precision.

double value = -4.42330604244772E-305;

double fromLiteral = -4.42330604244772E-305;
double fromVariable = value;
double fromParse = Double.Parse("-4.42330604244772E-305");

Console.WriteLine("Double value from literal: {0,29:R}", fromLiteral);
Console.WriteLine("Double value from variable: {0,28:R}", fromVariable);
Console.WriteLine("Double value from Parse method: {0,24:R}", fromParse);      
// On 32-bit versions of the .NET Framework, the output is:
//    Double value from literal:        -4.42330604244772E-305
//    Double value from variable:       -4.42330604244772E-305
//    Double value from Parse method:   -4.42330604244772E-305
//
// On other versions of the .NET Framework, the output is:
//    Double value from literal:      -4.4233060424477198E-305
//    Double value from variable:     -4.4233060424477198E-305
//    Double value from Parse method:   -4.42330604244772E-305