Floating-Point Types

Floating-Point Types

The following table provides the details of standard floating-point types with
storage sizes and value ranges and their precision:
Type              Storage size           Value range                       Precision
float                4 byte                         1.2E-38 to 3.4E+38              6 decimal places
double            8 byte                         2.3E-308 to 1.7E+308         15 decimal places
long double 10 byte                          3.4E-4932 to 1.1E+4932     19 decimal places

The header file float.h defines macros that allow you to use these values and
other details about the binary representation of real numbers in your programs.
The following example prints the storage space taken by a float type and its
range values:

#include <stdio.h> #include <float.h> int main() { printf("Storage size for float : %d \n", sizeof(float)); printf("Minimum float positive value: %E\n", FLT_MIN ); printf("Maximum float positive value: %E\n", FLT_MAX ); printf("Precision value: %d\n", FLT_DIG ); return 0; }

When you compile and execute the above program, it produces the following
result on Linux:

Storage size for float : 4 Minimum float positive value: 1.175494E-38 Maximum float positive value: 3.402823E+38 Precision value: 6