Copyright © 2001-2005 Oren Ben-Kiki, Clark Evans, Brian Ingerson
Status
This specification is a draft reflecting consensus reached by members of the yaml-core mailing list. Any questions regarding this draft should be raised on this list.
URI:
tag:yaml.org,2002:float
Shorthand:
!!float
Kind:
Scalar.
Canonical:
0 |[-]?0\.([0-9]*[1-9])?e[-+](0|[1-9][0-9]+) (scientific) |-?\.inf (infinity) |\.nan (not a number)
[-+]?([0-9][0-9_]*)?\.[0-9.]*([eE][-+][0-9]+)? (base 10) |[-+]?[0-9][0-9_]*(:[0-5]?[0-9])+\.[0-9_]* (base 60) |[-+]?\.(inf|Inf|INF) # (infinity) |\.(nan|NaN|NAN) # (not a number)
Definition:
Floating-point approximation to real numbers.
Floating-point numbers are approximations to real numbers,
including three special values (positive and negative infinity and
“not a number”). Using
“:” allows expressing the
integer part in base 60, which is convenient for time and angle
values (the fractional part is always in base 10). Any
“_” characters in the number
are ignored, allowing a readable representation of large values.
This should be loaded to some native float data type. The processor may choose from a range of such native data types according to the size and accuracy of the floating-point value. Note that not all floating-point values can be represented exactly when stored in any native float type, and hence a float value may change by “a small amount” when round-tripped through a native type. The valid range and accuracy depends on the implementation, though 32 bit IEEE floats should be safe. Since YAML does not specify a particular accuracy, using floating-point mapping keys requires great care and is not recommended.