how to tell the word length of a real variable?
 

How to determine what are the word length of a real/double-precision variable, on a 32-/64-bit machine?

Thanks,

Jiaying

Re: how to tell the word length of a real variable
 

Whether a machine is 32bits or 64 bits has absolutely nothing to with the length of real/double precision numbers. 64bits means that 64bit memory pointers are allowed. 32bits limits your maximum memory space to either 2Gb or 4Gb (ie 2^32) depending on the machine. None of this affects the word length of single precision numbers.