--- title: double, BigDecimal, or Fixed-Point?: Precision,... description: A deep technical guide on choosing between double, BigDecimal, and fixed-point arithmetic in Java. Covers IEEE 754 internals, NaN and -0.0 edge cases,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/double-bigdecimal-or-fixed-point-precision-performance-and-sane-choices-for-numbers-in-java-exsbowoaa twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: double, BigDecimal, or Fixed-Point?: Precision, Performance, and Sane Choices for Numbers in Java | daily.dev og:description: A deep technical guide on choosing between double, BigDecimal, and fixed-point arithmetic in Java. Covers IEEE 754 internals, NaN and -0.0 edge cases,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/double-bigdecimal-or-fixed-point-precision-performance-and-sane-choices-for-numbers-in-java-exsbowoaa og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ExSbOwoAA.png og:image:alt: double, BigDecimal, or Fixed-Point?: Precision, Performance, and Sane Choices for Numbers in Java og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # double, BigDecimal, or Fixed-Point?: Precision, Performance, and Sane Choices for Numbers in Java **[A Java geek](https://daily.dev/sources/frankel)** · 26 min read · 14 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A deep technical guide on choosing between double, BigDecimal, and fixed-point arithmetic in Java. Covers IEEE 754 internals, NaN and -0.0 edge cases, compensated summation algorithms (Kahan, Neumaier, pairwise), BigDecimal pitfalls (immutability trap, equals vs compareTo, construction from double), fast double rounding techniques, and fixed-point arithmetic using long. Also surveys libraries (JavaMoney/Moneta, Joda-Money, decimal4j, Apache Commons Numbers) and addresses production concerns: JSON serialization precision loss, testing strategies, thread safety (volatile, DoubleAdder), parallel stream non-determinism, and Project Valhalla's potential impact on numeric type performance. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Floating point can’t hold a cent. 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