Exact Change Problem Issue

Challenge Name

https://www.freecodecamp.com/challenges/exact-change

Issue Description

I had problem with this problem due to inaccurate calculations while working with “0.01” value. Sometimes returning value of calculation had wrong value after 7 or 8 decimal places (for example 1.01 - 0.01 = 0.999999996). Did anyone else had similar problem? I managed to solve it but still took me a lot of time to do it due to this issue that shouldn’t happen… Anyone have any idea why it is so. My opinion is that it is due to way that js saves integer and float values…

Browser Information

• Browser Name, Version: Google Chrome, 52.0.2743.82 (64-bit)
• Operating System: Linux Ubuntu 16.04
• Mobile, Desktop, or Tablet: Laptop

Your Code

Screenshot

[BKinahan]

Hi, @FatKoala. You can read all about floating point arithmetic (and good ways to handle it) here and other places online.

And a fun fact: JavaScript doesn’t make a type distinction between floats and integers. 1 and 1.00000 are the same number in JS (though this isn’t strictly the cause of the floating point precision errors you experienced).

It might be worthwhile to include a resource about floating point arithmetic (though not necessarily the one I linked to above) in the Helpful Links of this challenge as it is probably the first one which requires users to understand the precision issues it raises.

\cc @FreeCodeCamp/issue-moderators for feedback on adding such a link (and which link to add)

[raisedadead]

Yeah this is a very interesting topic and should be broached IMHO.

In JavaScript there is just on numeric Data type that is number and it’s usually a 64 bit floating point (considering how Browsers (JS Engines to be precise) are implementing them).

Let’s tag this as Help wanted for some one in the community to link up a good resource. I’ll try and look up as well, but yeah it’s better if it comes from someone who perhaps is a Language expert.