Drat Of The Day

Which is the minimum of the two:

A: -3.4028235e+038
B: 1.1754944e-038

That depends on how you define minimum. If you want the smallest magnitude, it's B. B is so close to 0 it might as well be 0 for most practical uses (0.000000000000000000000000000000000000011754944). But A is smaller if you think 'minimum' means 'leftmost on the number line'. A is so far to the left of B there aren't enough pixels on all the monitors in the world to draw that number line.

In C++ the result of std::numeric_limits<float>::min() is B: the smallest value a 'float' can store is B.

But the most-negative number a float can store is A. And A is -std::numeric_limits<float>::max().

So, if you are trying to limit the results of a function to the range of values that a float can hold, and you do this:

double result = doSomething();
double t = max(std::numeric_limits::min(), result);
t = min(std::numeric_limits::max(), t);
return (float)t;

You're going to very surprised when you discover that you never see a value smaller than 1.1754944e-038. You'll never even get 0.

What you really needed to write is this:

double result = doSomething();
double t = max(-std::numeric_limits::max(), result);
t = min(std::numeric_limits::max(), t);
return (float)t;

But, that trickery only applies to floating point types. The smallest magnitude you can store in an int is 0. But std::numeric_limits<int>::min() is -2147483648. That's the most-negative value, not the value with least magnitude.

And now you know.