According to the same Javadoc:
If the argument is NaN or an infinity or positive zero or negative zero, then the result is the same as the argument. Can't do that with an int.
The largest double value is also larger than the largest int, so it would have to be a long.
According to the same Javadoc:
If the argument is NaN or an infinity or positive zero or negative zero, then the result is the same as the argument. Can't do that with an int.
The largest double value is also larger than the largest int, so it would have to be a long.
It's for precision. The double data-type has a 53 bit mantissa. Among other things that means that a double can represent all whole up to 2^53 without precision loss.
If you store such a large number in an integer you will get an overflow. Integers only have 32 bits.
Returning the integer as a double is the right thing to do here because it offers a much wider usefull number-range than a integer could.