Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!encore!pinocchio
From: knighten@pinocchio (Bob Knighten)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Source for ASCII to FLOAT
Keywords: atof( ) ASCII float
Message-ID: <11747@xenna.Encore.COM>
Date: 31 Jul 89 15:28:49 GMT
References: <38@pldote.intel.com> <8207@xyzzy.UUCP> <9699@alice.UUCP> <9701@alice.UUCP>
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Reply-To: knighten@pinocchio (Bob Knighten)
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In-reply-to: ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)

In article <9701@alice.UUCP>, ark@alice (Andrew Koenig) gives a nice
discussion of some of the issues in writing a good atof.  Here I would like to
add a few references for those who want to do it.  The best overall discussion
- in the context of the IEEE standard for binary floating point arithmetic - is
Chapter 7 (Accurate Yet Economical Binary-Decimal Conversions) of

Jerome T. Connen, Contributions to a Proposed Standard for Binary
Floating-Point Arithmetic.  Ph. D. Thesis, Department of Mathematics,
University of California, Berkeley. June, 1984.

This is available from University Microfilms.  The order number is 8512788.

Also useful is Appendix D (Pascal Unit for Correctly Rounded Binary-Decimal
Conversions.)  

Other useful references:

J. T. Coonen, "An implementation guide to a proposed standard for
floating-point arithmetic," Computer, 13(1), Jan. 1980, pp 68-79

I. B. Goldberg, "27 bits are not enough for 8-digit accuracy," CACM, 10(2),
Feb. 1967, pp. 105-106

D. W. Matula, "In-and-out conversions," CACM, 11(1), Jan. 1968, pp. 47-50

E. W. Phillips, "Binary calculation," in The Origins of Digital Computers, 2nd
ed., G. Randell, ed., Springer-Verlag, 1975, p. 273