Why does a C# System.Decimal remember trailing zeros?

Question

Is there a reason that a C# System.Decimal remembers the number of trailing zeros it was entered with? See the following example:

public void DoSomething()
{
    decimal dec1 = 0.5M;
    decimal dec2 = 0.50M;
    Console.WriteLine(dec1);            //Output: 0.5
    Console.WriteLine(dec2);            //Output: 0.50
    Console.WriteLine(dec1 == dec2);    //Output: True
}

The decimals are classed as equal, yet dec2 remembers that it was entered with an additional zero. What is the reason/purpose for this?

Answer 1

It can be useful to represent a number including its accuracy - so 0.5m could be used to mean "anything between 0.45m and 0.55m" (with appropriate limits) and 0.50m could be used to mean "anything between 0.495m and 0.545m".

I suspect that most developers don't actually use this functionality, but I can see how it could be useful sometimes.

I believe this ability first arrived in .NET 1.1, btw - I think decimals in 1.0 were always effectively normalized.