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A fixed-point representation of a fractional number is essentially an integer that is to be implicitly multiplied by a fixed scaling factor. For example, the value 1.23 can be stored in a variable as the integer value 1230 with implicit scaling factor of 1/1000 (meaning that the last 3 decimal digits are implicitly assumed to be a decimal fraction), and the value 1 230 000 can be represented ...
Every decimal representation of a rational number can be converted to a fraction by converting it into a sum of the integer, non-repeating, and repeating parts and then converting that sum to a single fraction with a common denominator.
Conversion of the fractional part: Consider 0.375, the fractional part of 12.375. To convert it into a binary fraction, multiply the fraction by 2, take the integer part and repeat with the new fraction by 2 until a fraction of zero is found or until the precision limit is reached which is 23 fraction digits for IEEE 754 binary32 format.
In order to convert a rational number represented as a fraction into decimal form, one may use long division. For example, consider the rational number 5 / 74 : 0.0 675 74 ) 5.00000 4.44 560 518 420 370 500 etc. Observe that at each step we have a remainder; the successive remainders displayed above are 56, 42, 50.
Thus, it is often useful to convert repeating decimals into fractions. A conventional way to indicate a repeating decimal is to place a bar (known as a vinculum) over the digits that repeat, for example 0. 789 = 0.789789789... For repeating patterns that begin immediately after the decimal point, the result of the conversion is the fraction ...
The final conversion is from binary to decimal fractions. The only difficulty arises with repeating fractions, but otherwise the method is to shift the fraction to an integer, convert it as above, and then divide by the appropriate power of two in the decimal base. For example:
To convert a number with a fractional part, such as .0101, one must convert starting from right to left the 1s to decimal as in a normal conversion. In this example 0101 is equal to 5 in decimal. Each digit after the floating point represents a fraction where the denominator is a multiplier of 2. So, the first is 1/2, the second is 1/4 and so on.
The advantage of decimal floating-point representation over decimal fixed-point and integer representation is that it supports a much wider range of values. For example, while a fixed-point representation that allocates 8 decimal digits and 2 decimal places can represent the numbers 123456.78, 8765.43, 123.00, and so on, a floating-point ...