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jsonscientific-notation

JSON e and JSON E

On the JSON website here, it explains the different possibilities of JSON 'objects'. However, in the numbers section, these appear:

e | e+ | e- | E | E+ | E-

1 - What do these represent?

In searching for an answer, <E> appears alot.

2 - Is <E> related to the above e|Es?

Solution

  • It's the notation JSON (and most programming languages) use for scientific notation. Scientific notation is used to denote very large or small floating-point numbers. The e (or equivalently E) is equivalent to "×10^". For example,

    3.7e-5 = 3.7E-5 = 3.7×10-5 = 0.000037

    Positive or negative exponents may be used, and in the case of positive exponents, the + symbol may be omitted:

    6.02e+23 = 6.02e23 = 6.02×1023 = 602 sextillion

    More details are available at the Wikipedia article on scientific notation.