Re: doubt in balance

[Geordie McBain]

On Tue, 2005-07-26 at 07:53 +0000, Jorge Barros de Abreu wrote:
> Hi for All.
> 
> In "help balance" there is in raw 10 the word "roundoff". In its context what 
> is "roundoff" ?
> What is "without roundoff" ?
> 
> Thanks.

To "round" or "round off" is to represent a real number by a nearby
decimal.  "Roundoff error" is that incurred by a loss of significant
digits, as in subtracting quantities of similar magnitude
(100.1-100=0.1).  I don't know the internals of Octave's balance(), but
I presume the "without roundoff" here means that the calculations are
arranged so that loss of significant figures is avoided.




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