Adjusting decimal precision, .net

Question

These lines in C#

decimal a = 2m; decimal b = 2.0m; decimal c = 2.00000000m; decimal d = 2.000000000000000000000000000m;  Console.WriteLine(a); Console.WriteLine(b); Console.WriteLine(c); Console.WriteLine(d); 

Generates this output:

2 2.0 2.00000000 2.000000000000000000000000000 

So I can see that creating a decimal variable from a literal allows me to control the precision.

• Can I adjust the precision of decimal variables without using literals?
• How can I create b from a? How can I create b from c?

Answer 1

Preserving trailing zeroes like this was introduced in .NET 1.1 for more strict conformance with the ECMA CLI specification.

There is some info on this on MSDN, e.g. here.

You can adjust the precision as follows:

• Math.Round (or Ceiling, Floor etc) to decrease precision (b from c)

• Multiply by 1.000... (with the number of decimals you want) to increase precision - e.g. multiply by 1.0M to get b from a.

Answer 2

You are just seeing different representations of the exact same data. The precision of a decimal will be scaled to be as big as it needs to be (within reason).

From System.Decimal:

A decimal number is a floating-point value that consists of a sign, a numeric value where each digit in the value ranges from 0 to 9, and a scaling factor that indicates the position of a floating decimal point that separates the integral and fractional parts of the numeric value.

The binary representation of a Decimal value consists of a 1-bit sign, a 96-bit integer number, and a scaling factor used to divide the 96-bit integer and specify what portion of it is a decimal fraction. The scaling factor is implicitly the number 10, raised to an exponent ranging from 0 to 28. Therefore, the binary representation of a Decimal value is of the form, ((-2⁹⁶ to 2⁹⁶) / 10^{(0 to 28)}), where -2⁹⁶-1 is equal to MinValue, and 2⁹⁶-1 is equal to MaxValue.

The scaling factor also preserves any trailing zeroes in a Decimal number. Trailing zeroes do not affect the value of a Decimal number in arithmetic or comparison operations. However, trailing zeroes can be revealed by the ToString method if an appropriate format string is applied.