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authorJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2012-09-15 08:09:18 +0200
committerJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2012-09-15 08:09:18 +0200
commitc5ccf29bbfaab01ed893c9ca3a3843181c329317 (patch)
treed223003b06a4c4f30586ecfa60a97b1004e9697a
parent3786fb6de3918692675287953825ef623bcff9b6 (diff)
downloadcoreutils-c5ccf29bbfaab01ed893c9ca3a3843181c329317.tar.xz
doc: update seq description
* doc/coreutils.texi (seq invocation): Update an example and mention that with the new constraints, seq can print arbitrarily large numbers.
-rw-r--r--doc/coreutils.texi12
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index f2620bc5a..cb4ad838d 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -16249,12 +16249,16 @@ case is that @command{seq} works with integers through @math{2^{64}},
and larger integers may not be numerically correct:
@example
-$ seq 18446744073709551616 1 18446744073709551618
-18446744073709551616
-18446744073709551616
-18446744073709551618
+$ seq 50000000000000000000 2 50000000000000000004
+50000000000000000000
+50000000000000000000
+50000000000000000004
@end example
+However, note that when limited to non-negative whole numbers,
+an increment of 1 and no format-specifying option, seq can print
+arbitrarily large numbers.
+
Be careful when using @command{seq} with outlandish values: otherwise
you may see surprising results, as @command{seq} uses floating point
internally. For example, on the x86 platform, where the internal