Decimals to fraction strings

[Dave Hansen]

On 16 May 2000 22:49:54 -0400, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois_Pinard?=
<pinard at iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

>mjackson at wc.eso.mc.xerox.com (Mark Jackson) writes:
[...]
>> <dumb look>
>> Is not this same constraint applied by the problem itself, which starts
>> with a [finite length] decimal representation?
>> </dumb look>
>
>Not necessarily.  0.6667 is well approximated by 1:3, for example, while

ITYM 2/3.

>if you force the denominator to be an exponent of 10, you will obtain a
>fraction which is not only uglier, but less precise.

Uglier, perhaps.  But 6667/10000 is a somewhat more precise
approximation of .6667 than is 2/3.

Regards,

                              -=Dave
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