Dear Forum,
I have experienced some strange behaviour using float/double values in a formula calculation.
Using the same static double values the result may differ each time I run the calculation?
I'm using a LPC824 (Cortex M0) with no FPU and KEIL-MDK. No MicroLIB and default compiler version 5
I'm aware of the usage of double/float precision issue. But this problem is when using the same values, the result is different each time I run a calculation.
I have a voltage (double) from a ADC, that is run through a formula, that uses 7 coefs (double).
The formula is this:
dResult = V0[paramIndex] + ( (dTemp-T0[paramIndex])*(P1[paramIndex]+(dTemp-T0[paramIndex])*(P2[paramIndex]+(dTemp-T0[paramIndex])*(P3[paramIndex]+P4[paramIndex]*(dTemp-T0[paramIndex]))))/( 1+(dTemp-T0[paramIndex])*(q1[paramIndex]+q2[paramIndex]*(dTemp-T0[paramIndex]))));
V0[], T0[], P1[], P2[], P3[], P4[], q1[] and q2[] contains static double values. So they do neve change.
dTemp is the double value (voltage) passed to the function containing the formula.
If I also keep the dTemp stable (fixed static value of 27.8125) the dResult is different each time I run the formula. If I use the value of 27.7812 it is the same value each time.
Why do I see this behavior? Why is the result not the same each time?
Thomas
I think that is to be expected?
Floating-point is prone to rounding errors as not all values can be exactly represented.
So doing the calculation in a different order could well give a slightly different result - as different roundings occur.
Yes, that makes sense.
But it does not explain why I do get different result with the same set of data when I run the calculation.
I have tried different compiler optimization settings without any luck.
Should I try keep values as float types? I know I lose precision, but I need consistency and not precision.