Name

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DECIMAL_PLACE

Purpose

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This function returns the decimal place of the first significant
digit.

Category

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Mathematics

Calling Sequence

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Result = DECIMAL_PLACE( Xin )

Inputs

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Xin: A scalar or vector of type floating point.

Keyword Parameters

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GREATER: If set, the function returns negative values for numbers
outside the -1 to 1 range, indicating the placement of the
leading digit (e.g. "-2" for 100). The default is to return
"0" for such numbers.

Outputs

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Result: The decimal place of the first significant digit. The
default is to return "0" for all numbers not between "-1" and
"1."

Procedure

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This function determines the decimal place through a recursive
algorithm. For vectors the function calls itself for each
element.

Example

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Calculate the decimal place of the first significant digit in
0.0123.
result = decimal_place( 0.0123 )

Modification History

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  Written by: Daithi A. Stone, 2000-06-27.
Modified: DAS, 2000-07-06 (removed LENGTH.pro).
Modified: DAS, 2000-09-26 (added GREATER keyword).
Modified: DAS, 2000-11-29 (added numerical accuracy fix).
Modified: DAS, 2002-02-06 (fixed numerical accuracy fix)