When to use binary

Two histogram steps in optdiag output can show the same value due to loss of precision, even though the binary values differ. For example, both 1.999999999 and 2.000000000 may be displayed as 2.000000000 in decimal, even though the binary values differ. In cases such as this, you should use binary for input.

If you do not use binary mode, optdiag issues an error message indicating that the step values are not increasing and advising you to use binary mode. To avoid losing precision in sysstatistics, optdiag skips loading the histogram in which the error occurred.