# ParaView cannot read numbers like 1e-100

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/paraview-cannot-read-numbers-like-1e-100/3252
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [December 31, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/paraview-cannot-read-numbers-like-1e-100/3252 "2019-12-31T21:47:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Jianfeng\_Yan](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/jianfeng_yan/32/2636_2.png) [@Jianfeng\_Yan](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Jianfeng_Yan)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/paraview-cannot-read-numbers-like-1e-100/3252/1 "2019-12-31T21:47:18Z")

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Hi, I found that ParaView cannot read VTK files with numbers like 1e-331.

To reproduce the error, please use the following file:

```
# vtk DataFile Version 3.0
ibm
ASCII
DATASET UNSTRUCTURED_GRID
POINTS 3 double
1.0e-321 1.1e-349 0.0
1.0 0.0 0.0
0.0 1.0 0.0
CELLS 1 4
3 0 1 2
CELL_TYPES 1
5

```

At least for the version I am using, 5.6.0 on MacOS, this file cannot be read successfully, but simply changing 1.0e-360 to 0.0 solves the problem.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/cory.quammen/32/11193_2.png) [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2020, 3:16am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/paraview-cannot-read-numbers-like-1e-100/3252/2 "2020-01-03T03:16:56Z")

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1.0-e321 is smaller than the smallest representable double in the iEEE 754 format, so the parsing of 1.0e-321 fails. What VTK (and ParaView) are doing in reporting the error is likely better than assuming some value for an unparsable number string, so I don’t think this is a bug.