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String representations of floating point values can lead to incorrect conclusions about the precision of the values. For example, consider converting a value of type float to the type double, a widening primitive conversion. Refer to the guideline FLP10-J. Avoid casting primitive integer types to floating-point types without range checks for more details about such conversions. When the value of the float variable must be represented exactly using the double type, an explicit assignment is more appropriate than first converting the floating point value to a String and then to a double-point numbers should not be compared or inspected. If they are used, significant care needs to be taken to ensure expected behavior.

Noncompliant Code Example (String Comparison)

This noncompliant code example obtains the result of incorrectly compares the decimal string literal generated by 1/100010000.0 and represents it as a String. However, even though the resulting value is precise, an extra zero digit is appended at the end. Any operations on the string, such as comparisons, can yield incorrect results. The string produced is not 0.0001 but rather 1.0E-4.

int i = 1;
String s = Double.valueOf (i / 100010000.0).toString(); // s contains 0.0010
if (s.equals("0.0010001")) { // Fails
  // Do something
}

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant code example attempts to use a regular expression to eliminate the trailing zeros. However, even though this works for 1/1000.0, for 1/10000.0, it produces the string 1.0E-4, which the regular expression is unable to process as expected. Subsequent comparison operations can still fail.

int i = 1;
String s = Double.valueOf (i / 10000.0).toString(); // s contains 0.0010
s = s.replaceFirst("[.0]*$", "");
// ...
}

Compliant Solution (String Comparison)

This compliant solution uses the BigDecimal class and strips the trailing zeros so that future operations do not failto avoid the conversion into scientific notation. It then performs a numeric comparison, which passes as expected.

int i = 1;
BigDecimal d = new BigDecimal(Double.valueOf (i / 100010000.0).toString()).stripTrailingZeros();
if (d.compareTo(new BigDecimal("0.0010001")) == 0) { // Passes
  // Do something...
}

Risk Assessment

Relying on Comparing or inspecting the string representation of floating-point types can result in imprecise valuesvalues may have unexpected results.

Automated Detection

TODO

Related Vulnerabilities

HV-192

Bibliography

\[[API 2006|AA. Bibliography#API 06]\] 
\[[JLS 2005|AA. Bibliography#JLS 05]\]

Android Implementation Details

Comparing or inspecting the string representation of floating-point values may have unexpected results on Android.

Bibliography

[API 2006]
[JLS 2015]
[Seacord 2015]	Image Added NUM11-J. Do not compare or inspect the string representation of floating-point values LiveLesson

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Image Added Image Added Image AddedFLP08-J. Avoid using floating point literals with the BigDecimal constructor      Floating Point (FLP)      Object Orientation (OBJ)