String conversion from numeric to string in awk

Question

I have below awk command which give mentioned result as well.

echo '1600000.00000000' '1600000.0000' | awk '{ print ($1 != $2) ? "true" : "false" }'

Result is : - false

As per numeric value the result given by the command is correct. But I want command must consider both input('1600000.00000000' '1600000.0000') as string and give the result as true. Because If you consider both input as string then they are not equal difference is there in precision.

Answer 1

From the GNU Awk user's guide, to force a number to be converted to a string, concatenate that number with the empty string ""

$ echo '1600000.00000000' '1600000.0000' |
  awk '{ print ($1"" != $2"") ? "true" : "false" }'

Answer 2

You can also use sprintf:

echo '1600000.00000000' '1600000.0000' |\
awk '{ print(sprintf("%f",$1) == sprintf("%f",$2)) ? "true": "false"}'
true