ficant digits required for a lossless round-trip
conversion of the form <code>numeric -&gt; string -&gt; numeric</code>. In general, one
may expect the <code>f</code> format to produce losses in round-trip conversion of
up to a few <code>epsilon</code> in as many as a fifth of transfers. However, the
<code>e</code> format is not expected to produce any losses, and the <code>z</code> format
will never produce losses as it involves direct bit transfer (no
base-10 â‡† base-2 conversions are involved).</p>