Fortran and financial calculations

Is Fortran 95 suitable for financial calculations? I mean: I probably have
to perform all calculations with two digits after the decimal point and
then do some "Banker's rounding", but I have really no idea.

TIA,
GaK

Gastfreund aus Korinth <keine@nirgendwo.de> wrote:
> Is Fortran 95 suitable for financial calculations? I mean: I probably have
> to perform all calculations with two digits after the decimal point and
> then do some "Banker's rounding", but I have really no idea.
>

One common trick is to perform all calculations in Cents (or Lepta or
whatever) and then shift the decimal point just for printing EURO (or
$ or EYPO or whatever) amounts. This at least avoids the problem that
a number like 0.01 EUR does not have an exact representation in binary
floating point. Double precision variables hold more digits than
integers and they may give you a handle for rounding.

Rounding may be more tricky. Whatever "Banker's rounding" means, you
will probably have to implement it by hand using AINT, ANINT or
whatever is suitable. The real problem is to avoid intermediate
rounding in more complex calculations (more complex than a single
operation).


--
Klaus Wacker              wacker@Physik.Uni-Dortmund.DE
Experimentelle Physik V   http://www.physik.uni-dortmund.de/~wacker
Universitaet Dortmund     Tel.: +49 231 755 3587
D-44221 Dortmund          Fax:  +49 231 755 4547

"Gastfreund aus Korinth" <keine@nirgendwo.de> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.07.27.05.53.48.109000@nirgendwo.de...
> Is Fortran 95 suitable for financial calculations? I mean: I probably have
> to perform all calculations with two digits after the decimal point and
> then do some "Banker's rounding", but I have really no idea.
>
> TIA,
> GaK
>


Earlier this year I showed a Fortran solution
http://home.cfl.rr.com/davegemini/decimal.f90

to a multi-language challenge called "The IBM Telco Benchmark"
that has fastest processing of the 1 million phone call file.

Review:   http://www2.hursley.ibm.com/decimal/telco.html