Single::Epsilon Field

Field Value

The value of the Epsilon property reflects the smallest positive Single value that is significant in numeric operations or comparisons when the value of the Single instance is zero. For example, the following code shows that zero and Epsilon are considered to be unequal values, whereas zero and half the value of Epsilon are considered to be equal.

More precisely, the single-precision floating-point format consists of a sign, a 23-bit mantissa or significand, and an 8-bit exponent. As the following example shows, zero has an exponent of -126 and a mantissa of 0. Epsilon has an exponent of -126 and a mantissa of 1. This means that Single::Epsilon is the smallest positive Single value that is greater than zero and represents the smallest possible value and the smallest possible increment for a Single whose exponent is -126.

However, the Epsilon property is not a general measure of precision of the Single type; it applies only to Single instances that have a value of zero.

Note
The value of the Epsilon property is not equivalent to machine epsilon, which represents the upper bound of the relative error due to rounding in floating-point arithmetic.

The value of this constant is 1.4e-45.

Two apparently equivalent floating-point numbers might not compare equal because of differences in their least significant digits. For example, the C# expression, (float)1/3 == (float)0.33333, does not compare equal because the division operation on the left side has maximum precision while the constant on the right side is precise only to the specified digits. If you create a custom algorithm that determines whether two floating-point numbers can be considered equal, you must use a value that is greater than the Epsilon constant to establish the acceptable absolute margin of difference for the two values to be considered equal. (Typically, that margin of difference is many times greater than Epsilon.)