About the double type

[Nash]

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double a = 42.f;

double b = 360. / 2;

1) When to use or not use the period after the number, if there is no fractional part?
2) What does it even mean?
3) When are you supposed to use f and not use f?

[dpJudas]

Not sure if this is the correct answer for ZScript, but for C++ the .f is shorthand for float, while just the dot is shorthand for double.

If you are storing something in a double it is a bad idea to use .f because that may make the calculations a little less accurate. In your example, though, it makes no difference because a float can fully hold the number 42 without any precision loss.

Generally for ZScript I would always use doubles, unless you have a very specific reason to use floats.

[Graf Zahl]

The '.f' part really has no meaning in ZScript because even if present, it's still using strtod to convert the number into a double. And if you declare a local variable 'float' it will also be made a double implicitly. Single precision floats can only be used as struct, class or array members.

[dpJudas]

1) When to use or not use the period after the number, if there is no fractional part?

Forgot to answer that one. When you add the period that number becomes a double, while if you leave it out the number is an integer. Here's some examples:

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int a = 5 / 2; // result is 2, because its an integer division
double b = 5 / 2; // result is still 2, because it is an integer division, then converted to a double
double c = 5. / 2; // result is 2.5, because a double divided by an integer is a floating point division
double d = 5 / 2.; // result is 2.5, same reason
double e = 5 / 2 + 5. / 2; // result is 4.5 - first part is an integer division, second part is a float

Which to use: depends if you want to calculate with integer or floating point arithmetics.

[Nash]

Thanks! So when I want to specifically make the result have floating point precision, I must enforce it by adding the period. :D