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Subsections

EPS Double Precision Floating Point Relative Machine Precision Epsilon

Usage

Returns eps, which quantifies the relative machine precision of floating point numbers (a machine specific quantity). The syntax for eps is:

   y = eps

which returns eps for double precision values. For most typical processors, this value is approximately 2^-52, or 2.2204e-16.

Example

The following example demonstrates the use of the eps function, and one of its numerical consequences.

--> eps
ans = 
  <double>  - size: [1 1]
    1.11022302462516e-16   
--> 1.0+eps
ans = 
  <double>  - size: [1 1]
    1.000000000000000



Samit K. Basu 2005-03-16