Boost C++ Libraries

...one of the most highly regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the world. Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu, C++ Coding Standards

This is the documentation for an old version of Boost. Click here to view this page for the latest version.
PrevUpHomeNext

cpp_dec_float

#include <boost/multiprecision/cpp_dec_float.hpp>

namespace boost{ namespace multiprecision{

template <unsigned Digits10, class ExponentType = std::int32_t, class Allocator = void>
class cpp_dec_float;

typedef number<cpp_dec_float<50> > cpp_dec_float_50;
typedef number<cpp_dec_float<100> > cpp_dec_float_100;

}} // namespaces

The cpp_dec_float back-end is used in conjunction with number: It acts as an entirely C++ (header only and dependency free) floating-point number type that is a drop-in replacement for the native C++ floating-point types, but with much greater precision.

Type cpp_dec_float can be used at fixed precision by specifying a non-zero Digits10 template parameter. The typedefs cpp_dec_float_50 and cpp_dec_float_100 provide arithmetic types at 50 and 100 decimal digits precision respectively. Optionally, you can specify an integer type to use for the exponent, this defaults to a 32-bit integer type which is more than large enough for the vast majority of use cases, but larger types such as long long can also be specified if you need a truly huge exponent range. In any case the ExponentType must be a fundamental (built-in) signed integer type at least 2 bytes and 16-bits wide.

Normally cpp_dec_float allocates no memory: all of the space required for its digits are allocated directly within the class. As a result care should be taken not to use the class with too high a digit count as stack space requirements can grow out of control. If that represents a problem then providing an allocator as the final template parameter causes cpp_dec_float to dynamically allocate the memory it needs: this significantly reduces the size of cpp_dec_float and increases the viable upper limit on the number of digits at the expense of performance. However, please bear in mind that arithmetic operations rapidly become very expensive as the digit count grows: the current implementation really isn't optimized or designed for large digit counts.

There is full standard library and std::numeric_limits support available for this type.

Things you should know when using this type:

cpp_dec_float example:
#include <boost/multiprecision/cpp_dec_float.hpp>
#include <boost/math/special_functions/gamma.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
   using namespace boost::multiprecision;

   // Operations at fixed precision and full numeric_limits support:
   cpp_dec_float_100 b = 2;
   std::cout << std::numeric_limits<cpp_dec_float_100>::digits << std::endl;
   // Note that digits10 is the same as digits, since we're base 10! :
   std::cout << std::numeric_limits<cpp_dec_float_100>::digits10 << std::endl;
   // We can use any C++ std lib function, lets print all the digits as well:
   std::cout << std::setprecision(std::numeric_limits<cpp_dec_float_100>::max_digits10)
      << log(b) << std::endl; // print log(2)
   // We can also use any function from Boost.Math:
   std::cout << boost::math::tgamma(b) << std::endl;
   // These even work when the argument is an expression template:
   std::cout << boost::math::tgamma(b * b) << std::endl;
   // And since we have an extended exponent range we can generate some really large 
   // numbers here (4.0238726007709377354370243e+2564):
   std::cout << boost::math::tgamma(cpp_dec_float_100(1000)) << std::endl;
   return 0;
}

PrevUpHomeNext