Extension:BCmath/Glossary



Glossary for BCmath is a list of core terms and concepts for bcmath, or arbitrary-precision arithmetic.

Terms and concepts

 * Arbitrary precision
 * When calculations are not limited by specific register sizes it is referred to as arbitrary precision.
 * Wikipedia: Arbitrary-precision


 * Infinity (∞)
 * Infinite numbers are valid numbers that are represented with a particular Unicode symbol, the infinity (U+221E) codepoint.
 * An infinite number can have a sign, bot a plus infinity (+∞) and a minus infinity (-∞).
 * Wikipedia: Infinity


 * NaN
 * Not-a-Number is the value of a calculation that has no valid representation as a number.
 * A NaN can have a payload that further clarify what it is or represents.
 * Wikipedia: NaN


 * Operation
 * Numbers are combined they are said to be operands to an operation.
 * Operations and operands can have their own names, like addition has addend and augend.


 * Payload
 * When calculations generates a NaN, then additional information might be added to the payload.
 * Payloads might be inspected in the console, but will otherwise be silently forgotten.


 * Scale
 * The scale is how the number is shifted to process it efficiently.
 * The BCmath extension tries to estimate the scale factor if it is missing.
 * PHP:bcscale


 * Self
 * The actual instance, in this case holding a number, is called the “self” object.