floating point - Java: Why do you need to specify an 'f' in a float literal?

Question

(This question already has answers here): question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14102955/java-why-do-you-need-to-specify-an-f-in-a-float-literal

Answer 1

Because otherwise it defaults to double, which is a more commonly used floating point type than float.

From the Java Language Specification, section 3.10.2:

A floating-point literal is of type float if it is suffixed with an ASCII letter F or f; otherwise its type is double and it can optionally be suffixed with an ASCII letter D or d (§4.2.3).

(Personally I'd rather there were no default, to make it clear in all cases, but that's a different matter.)