Something really weird with C++ exp() function

user_13503819 0
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When tying to implement mySqrt function in C++, I used the exp() function like this:

int mySqrt(int x) {
    // For x = 2147395600
    cout << exp(0.5*log(x)) << "  ";     // It prints 46340
    return exp(0.5*log(x));              // But returns 46339
}

I tried to google the reason for this behavior but could not find anything. I even tried using double but still the same output.

Any explanation for this?

exp square-root c++
1 Answers

With this code

#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <cstdio>
using std::cout;

int mySqrt(int x) {
    // For x = 2147395600
    cout << exp(0.5*log(x)) << "  ";     // It prints 46340
    return exp(0.5*log(x));              // But returns 46349
}

int main(void) {
    std::cout << mySqrt(2147395600) << "\n";
    printf("%.30f\n", exp(0.5*log(2147395600)));
    return 0;
}

I got output:

46340  46339
46339.999999999978172127157449722290

It seems the value is rounded when passed to cout while truncated when converted to int.

user_40623540
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