Numbers

Where would we be without numbers? Hard to say, since map coordinates would be out the window.

In Elzed, all numbers are double-precision floating point values. Complex numbers are also supported, represented as a pair of double-precision floating point values. You may disable complex results, if you wish.

Constants may be expressed in any of five different bases; you may set the number base in which Elzed returns its formatted results. Elzed always returns numeric results in base 10.

Elzed also recognizes scientific notation, though with a twist made necessary by its support for multiple bases. For example, Elzed will correctly interpret "1.0E5" to be 1.0*(10^5), but what about bases other than 10? For example, how would Elzed interpret "0x1.0E5"? It's ambiguous on two levels -- first, 'E' is a hexadecimal digit (so Elzed won't recognize the exponent). Second, what base are we raising to the 5th power?

To address these questions, Elzed extends scientific notation in two ways. First, it will recognize 'X' as an exponent symbol in addition to 'E' (in bases 12 and 16 the 'E' is a digit, so only the 'X' is recognized). Second, the base being raised is always that of the first part of the number, so in the above example we would write 0x1.0X5 to get 1.0*(16^5).