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% File src/library/base/man/NumericConstants.Rd
% Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org
% Copyright 1995-2015 R Core Team
% Distributed under GPL 2 or later

\name{NumericConstants}
\alias{NumericConstants}
\alias{1L}
\alias{0x1}
\alias{1i}
\title{Numeric Constants}
\description{
  How \R parses numeric constants.
}
\details{
  \R parses numeric constants in its input in a very similar way to C99
  floating-point constants.

  \code{\link{Inf}} and \code{\link{NaN}} are numeric constants (with
  \code{\link{typeof}(.) "double"}).  In text input (e.g., in
  \code{\link{scan}} and \code{\link{as.double}}), these are recognized
  ignoring case as is \code{infinity} as an alternative to \code{Inf}.
  \code{\link{NA_real_}} and \code{\link{NA_integer_}} are constants of
  types \code{"double"} and \code{"integer"} representing missing
  values.  All other numeric constants start with a digit or period and
  are either a decimal or hexadecimal constant optionally followed by
  \code{L}.

  Hexadecimal constants start with \code{0x} or \code{0X} followed by
  a non-empty sequence from \code{0-9 a-f A-F .} which is interpreted as a
  hexadecimal number, optionally followed by a binary exponent.  A binary
  exponent consists of a \code{P} or \code{p} followed by an optional
  plus or minus sign followed by a non-empty sequence of (decimal)
  digits, and indicates multiplication by a power of two.  Thus
  \code{0x123p456} is \eqn{291 \times 2^{456}}{291 * 2^456}.

  Decimal constants consist of a non-empty sequence of digits possibly
  containing a period (the decimal point), optionally followed by a
  decimal exponent.  A decimal exponent consists of an \code{E} or
  \code{e} followed by an optional plus or minus sign followed by a
  non-empty sequence of digits, and indicates multiplication by a power
  of ten.

  Values which are too large or too small to be representable will
  overflow to \code{Inf} or underflow to \code{0.0}.

  A numeric constant immediately followed by \code{i} is regarded as an
  imaginary \link{complex} number.

  A numeric constant immediately followed by \code{L} is regarded as an
  \code{\link{integer}} number when possible (and with a warning if it
  contains a \code{"."}).

  Only the ASCII digits 0--9 are recognized as digits, even in languages
  which have other representations of digits.  The \sQuote{decimal
    separator} is always a period and never a comma.

  Note that a leading plus or minus is not regarded by the parser as
  part of a numeric constant but as a unary operator applied to the constant.
}
\note{
  When a string is parsed to input a numeric constant, the number may or
  may not be representable exactly in the C double type used.  If not
  one of the nearest representable numbers will be returned.

  \R's own C code is used to convert constants to binary numbers, so the
  effect can be expected to be the same on all platforms implementing
  full \abbr{IEC} 60559 arithmetic (the most likely area of difference being
  the handling of numbers less than \code{\link{.Machine}$double.xmin}).
  The same code is used by \code{\link{scan}}.
}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{Syntax}}.
  For complex numbers, see \code{\link{complex}}.
  \code{\link{Quotes}} for the parsing of character constants,
  \code{\link{Reserved}} for the \dQuote{reserved words} in \R{}.
}
\examples{
## You can create numbers using fixed or scientific formatting.
2.1
2.1e10
-2.1E-10

## The resulting objects have class numeric and type double.
class(2.1)
typeof(2.1)

## This holds even if what you typed looked like an integer.
class(2)
typeof(2)

## If you actually wanted integers, use an "L" suffix.
class(2L)
typeof(2L)

## These are equal but not identical
2 == 2L
identical(2, 2L)

## You can write numbers between 0 and 1 without a leading "0"
## (but typically this makes code harder to read)
.1234

sqrt(1i) # remember elementary math?
utils::str(0xA0)
identical(1L, as.integer(1))

## You can combine the "0x" prefix with the "L" suffix :
identical(0xFL, as.integer(15))
}
\keyword{documentation}