# Weird fortran problem (Assigned variable value doesn't match up with output)

• Fortran

## Main Question or Discussion Point

I ran into a kind of strange thing today while coding. I needed Pi in a program, so I used 2*accos(0.0) to pull it out, but my answers were slightly off. I checked the Pi calculated and it was off after a few decimal places.

"Odd", I thought, and just decided to put in Pi as an assigned number. However, this still didn't solve the problem! No matter how I inputted it, it was being altered somehow by the program. I whipped up a really quick program to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

program probs
real(kind=8)::v

v=3.141592653589793238462643
write(*,*)v
end

if you check the output( assuming it's not just my machine or compiler for some reason) you'll see the values for v and the number inputted for it are not the same.

I'm guessing it has something to do with using the kind flag, but I'm not much of a comp sci person, and my searches didn't turn up anything useful.

Anyone have any clue how to fix this? If it is related to kind, how can I keep high precision while avoiding this problem?

Related Programming and Computer Science News on Phys.org
The reason being the value you are assigning is one type and the variable on the left is a different type....if you are going to be declaring variables of different types that the default, you need to assign value of different type than the default; in fact, they should be declared of the exact same type...follow? maybe an example:

Code:
program probs
integer, parameter :: rrr=SELECTED_REAL_KIND(15,307)
real(KIND=rrr) :: v

v=3.141592653589793238462643_rrr
write(*,*)v
end
Here, we first declare a "type"...that's the integer variable rrr.
Then, we declare the variable v of that kind
Then, in order to assign a literal constant to that variable with suffix it with the same "type"...with '_rrr'

Now, test this program and you will see.

AlephZero