JSON e and JSON E

Question

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?

Cactus

Answer 1

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.

Hardheaded

Answer 2

The letter e looks a lot like the mathematical constant e (the 2.71828 thing) so languages usually let you use E instead. As shown by nandhp, it does the same thing as e.

Spawn

The e or E used in scientific notation is not (directly) related to the mathematical constant e. – Gilkey

user3128163 was not suggesting that it is related to the constant. They were referring to visually distinguishing it from the constant. – Silurian