Java floating-point mess

Mon Apr 8 13:02:00 GMT 2002

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> writes:

Andrew> The only issue here is that we won't be able to cross-compile
Andrew> Java on a VAX or somesuch, isn't it? Or am I missing
Andrew> something here?
Robert> That sounds right provided that the front end is not trying to
Robert> use host floating-point arithmetic to precompute expressions
Robert> (IEEE is not nearly enough of an absolute standard for this to
Robert> give the right results in all cases).
The front end is required to do these computations in some contexts,
namely compile-time constants. This is a concern to us, but it isn't
immediately pressing. We already violate the spec with respect to
compile-time constants in several ways.
Tom