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To test numbers for numerical equality, you should normally use
=
, not eq
. There can be many distinct floating point
number objects with the same numeric value. If you use eq
to
compare them, then you test whether two values are the same
object. By contrast, =
compares only the numeric values
of the objects.
At present, each integer value has a unique Lisp object in Emacs Lisp.
Therefore, eq
is equivalent to =
where integers are
concerned. It is sometimes convenient to use eq
for comparing an
unknown value with an integer, because eq
does not report an
error if the unknown value is not a number—it accepts arguments of any
type. By contrast, =
signals an error if the arguments are not
numbers or markers. However, it is a good idea to use =
if you
can, even for comparing integers, just in case we change the
representation of integers in a future Emacs version.
Sometimes it is useful to compare numbers with equal
; it treats
two numbers as equal if they have the same data type (both integers, or
both floating point) and the same value. By contrast, =
can
treat an integer and a floating point number as equal.
There is another wrinkle: because floating point arithmetic is not exact, it is often a bad idea to check for equality of two floating point values. Usually it is better to test for approximate equality. Here's a function to do this:
(defvar fuzz-factor 1.0e-6) (defun approx-equal (x y) (or (and (= x 0) (= y 0)) (< (/ (abs (- x y)) (max (abs x) (abs y))) fuzz-factor)))
Common Lisp note: Comparing numbers in Common Lisp always requires
=
because Common Lisp implements multi-word integers, and two
distinct integer objects can have the same numeric value. Emacs Lisp
can have just one integer object for any given value because it has a
limited range of integer values.
This function tests whether its arguments are numerically equal, and returns
t
if so,nil
otherwise.
This function tests whether its arguments are numerically equal, and returns
t
if they are not, andnil
if they are.
This function tests whether its first argument is strictly less than its second argument. It returns
t
if so,nil
otherwise.
This function tests whether its first argument is less than or equal to its second argument. It returns
t
if so,nil
otherwise.
This function tests whether its first argument is strictly greater than its second argument. It returns
t
if so,nil
otherwise.
This function tests whether its first argument is greater than or equal to its second argument. It returns
t
if so,nil
otherwise.
This function returns the largest of its arguments. If any of the argument is floating-point, the value is returned as floating point, even if it was given as an integer.
(max 20) => 20 (max 1 2.5) => 2.5 (max 1 3 2.5) => 3.0