 The denominator is usually a power of two.For example, in a fixed-point system that uses the denominator 65,536 (216), the hexadecimal number 0x12345678 means 0x12345678/65536 or 305419896/65536 or 4660 + 22136/65536 or about 4660.33777.A floating-point data type is a compromise between the flexibility of a general rational number data type and the speed of fixed-point arithmetic.