# Use of single precision floats instead of doubles in the Erlang runtime

**URL:** <https://erlangforums.com/t/use-of-single-precision-floats-instead-of-doubles-in-the-erlang-runtime/3613>\
**Category:** Questions / Help\
**Tags:** grisp, beam, float\
**Created:** [May 9, 2024, 4:19pm UTC](https://erlangforums.com/t/use-of-single-precision-floats-instead-of-doubles-in-the-erlang-runtime/3613 "2024-05-09T16:19:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![garazdawi](https://erlangforums.com/user_avatar/erlangforums.com/garazdawi/32/175_2.png) [@garazdawi](https://erlangforums.com/u/garazdawi)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2024, 8:14am UTC](https://erlangforums.com/t/use-of-single-precision-floats-instead-of-doubles-in-the-erlang-runtime/3613/2 "2024-05-10T08:14:57Z")

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Floats in Erlang are specified to be double precision, so if you change that you will create a different language. I don’t know if anything in stdlib/kernel relies on this fact, but you are bound to run into issues in various places in erts.

I think that the best approach would probably be to try to avoid floats alltogether and use the double float emulation where needed.

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