Is -Double.MAX_VALUE guaranteed to give the smallest finite negative Double?

# announcements

[Mitch]

Is -Double.MAX_VALUE guaranteed to give the smallest finite negative Double?

[andylamax]

it should be guaranteed, is it not?

[Stephan Schroeder]

i haven't checked up my Double representation know-how in a while, but for Byte it wouldn't be the same. There the range is -128 to 127.

[Stephan Schroeder]

fun main() {
    println(Double.MAX_VALUE)
    println(Double.MIN_VALUE)
    println(Double.MIN_VALUE==-Double.MAX_VALUE)
}

leads to

1.7976931348623157E308
4.9E-324
false

[hho]

Double.MIN_VALUE is not the most negative, but the closest to zero.

[Stephan Schroeder]

that explains why the value for Double.MIN_VALUE wasn't negative 😅 But I have to admit that I was surprised by this.

[hho]

yeah, the naming is not consistent with the integer classes 🙂 (but it makes sense, since these are the limits of representability)

[Stephan Schroeder]

Indeed, Int.MIN_VALUE isn't 1 😂

[Stephan Schroeder]

but basically nobody of us has answered the original question. Mitch never asked about Double.MIN_VALUE 😅