Hi, Marius!
Let's rather continue this discussion on the list. Be invited to bounce my article there if you reply publicly.
Perhaps in the distant future `LongestReal' will have greater precision than `Extended' ;)
Yes, I expect that too. That's why we have `LongestReal' as an alias for `LongReal' (= `Extended').
I understand that. But how can I determine the precision of data in a portable way?
I don't know right now, but it should be possible. With high probability, someone on the list knows a way.
The goal I'm trying to achieve is to get the value of a real number to a string in a not-scientific notation with highest possible precision.
You can't do it this way. In order to express some numbers represented in one system (say, the binary system) you need an infinite number of digits to express it in another system (say, the decimal one). 1/3, for instance, is a finite fraction in a system based on 3.
[...] I agree with the first half: BP should also output 70 digits (add some zeroes, for example).
Zeros would be intuitive, but simply wrong in most cases.
I see that I should have asked this question in another way: how to get decimal representation of a real number with maximum precision.
You can't without loss of precision.
A hexadecimal representation would do it.
Greetings,
Peter