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Numeric comparison difficulty in R
Hello All,
According to "R Inferno" paper. I'm right now in the first circle of R hell. This is where pagans expect 0.1 == 0.3/3. Paper recommends using all.equal
function for such cases, however I need to check ">=" or "<=" conditions. With current example on of them fail:
> .1 >= .3/3
[1] TRUE
> .1 <= .3/3
[1] FALSE
Is there a similar function to all.equal that checks inequalities?
Thank you,
Ilya
See these questions:
- In R, what is the difference between these two?
- Numeric comparison difficulty in R
Generally speaking, you can deal with this by including a tolerance level as per the second link above.
The main test of all.equal
is whether abs(x-y) < tolerance
for some values x
and y
and some small tolerance
. Equivalent inequality tests would check:
x <= y: x-y < tolerance
x < y: x-y < -tolerance
x >= y: x-y > -tolerance
x > y: x-y > tolerance
Please see the R FAQ entry Why doesn't R think these numbers are equal and the references therein.
You could try judicious use of zapsmall()
which seems to give the behavior you are looking for. I don't know if this works in all situations. e.g.,
.1 >= zapsmall(.3/3)
[1] TRUE
> .1 <= zapsmall(.3/3)
[1] TRUE