Double-precision Floating-point Format

Double-precision Floating-point Format

In computing, double precision is a computer number format that occupies two adjacent storage locations in computer memory. A double-precision number, sometimes simply called a double, may be defined to be an integer, fixed point, or floating point (in which case it is often referred to as FP64).

Modern computers with 32-bit storage locations use two memory locations to store a 64-bit double-precision number (a single storage location can hold a single-precision number). Double-precision floating-point is an IEEE 754 standard for encoding binary or decimal floating-point numbers in 64 bits (8 bytes).