A method is developed for the synthesis of the error in approximations in the large of regular and irregular functions. The synthesis uses a small class of dimensionless elementary error functions which are weighted by the coefficients of the expansion of the regular part of the function. The question is answered whether a computer can determine the analytical nature of a solution by numerical methods. It is shown that continuous least-squares approximations of irregular functions can be replaced by discrete least-squares approximation and how to select the discrete points. The elementary error functions are used to show how the classical convergence criterions can be markedly improved. There are eight numerical examples included, 30 figures and 74 tables.