what's the difference between "double" and "float" in c?

Question

I know that double has more precision than float and all that, but during lecture, my professor said 0.5 is a double. Could it be float too?

short int s;
int i;
long int l;
float f;
double d;
l = 2 * s + i * f - 0.5 * d;

Possible duplicate of [what is -0.0000 in c when using floats and double?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15175218/what-is-0-0000-in-c-when-using-floats-and-double) — Durgpal Singh, Dec 07 '15 at 05:32

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

According to this SO question, the type of a floating point literal (i.e. a number with a decimal point in it) is by default double unless it has a suffix of f:

The type of a floating literal is double unless explicitly specified by a suffix. The suffixes f and F specify float, the suffixes l and L specify long double.

So, your professor appears to be spot on. In the above expression 0.5 will be treated like a double by default. I hope that you will get a high grade on the final exam.

what's the difference between "double" and "float" in c?

1 Answers1