Problem 371. Decimal Comparison
Background
A utility of particular interest to Cody and other MATLAB ventures is comparing the equality of two numbers. In computing, numbers can be stored in a number of ways, but they all share the trait of being stored as a binary number. As such, the equals operator in MATLAB is checking the bits of one stored number against the bits of another stored number. In this problem, I ask that we move away from this binary representation and comparison of numbers back into the decimal domain.
Problem
Write a function that takes a character input that represents a number that we wish to compare against, n1, and a double input that represents the other number, n2. Output true if the numbers are equal to the precision of n1.
Example
    n1 = '12.3456'
    n2 = 12.3456
    output = true
    n1 = '12.34567432'
    n2 = 12.3456
    output = false
Solution Stats
Problem Comments
- 
		4 Comments
		    Show
		    1 older comment
		  
		  
		Jan
    	on 4 Mar 2012
	
	
  	It is not getting clear why '12.3456' and 12.3456789 should be accepted as equal.
		Andrew Dobrovolc
    	on 14 Aug 2017
	
	
  	the second test in the test suite is incorrect, it should be a negative assertion.
		Siddhant Shenoy
    	on 26 Mar 2019
	
	
  	Yes, I completely agree with the other comments. The second test case is incorrect. '12.3456' is not equal to 12.3456789 which when rounded off to 4 decimal places becomes 12.3457 
The 50 solvers yet (as of 26/03/19) are undeserving of their title as 'Solvers'.
		Dyuman Joshi
    	on 24 Feb 2021
	
	
  	The test case has been corrected.
Solution Comments
Show commentsProblem Recent Solvers250
Suggested Problems
- 
         
         1988 Solvers 
- 
         
         10597 Solvers 
- 
         Project Euler: Problem 1, Multiples of 3 and 5 3482 Solvers 
- 
         Convert a structure into a string 208 Solvers 
- 
         Solve a System of Linear Equations 13660 Solvers 
More from this Author56
Problem Tags
Community Treasure Hunt
Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!
Start Hunting!