从代码看到浮点数的数值并不一定等于内存中保存的该数的数值

Why am I losing precision while converting float32 to float64?

While converting a float32 number to float64 precision is being lost in Go. For example converting 359.9 to float64 produces 359.8999938964844. If float32 can be stored precisely why is float64 losing precision?

Sample code:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
)

func main() {
    var a float32 = 359.9
    fmt.Println(a)
    fmt.Println(float64(a))
}

answer:

You never lose precision when converting from a float (i.e. float32) to a double (float64). The former must be a subset of the latter.

It’s more to do with the defaulting precision of the output formatter.

The nearest IEEE754 float to 359.9 is

359.899993896484375
The nearest IEEE754 double to 359.9 is

359.8999999999999772626324556767940521240234375
The nearest IEEE754 double to 359.899993896484375 is

359.899993896484375
(i.e. is the same; due to the subsetting rule I’ve already mentioned).

So you can see that float64(a) is the same as float64(359.899993896484375) which is 359.899993896484375. This explains that output, although your formatter is rounding off the final 2 digits.