Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!bin
From: bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
Subject: Re: MAX_FLT isn't?
Message-ID: <907@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>
Date: 18 Oct 89 00:23:42 GMT
References: <29655@wright.mips.COM>
Sender: bin@primate.wisc.edu
Reply-To: bin@primate.wisc.edu
Lines: 23


From article <29655@wright.mips.COM>, by earl@wright (Earl Killian):
| In article <898@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>, bin@primate (Brain in Neutral) writes:
|>So what am I doing wrong here?
| 
| You're assuming that all computations are done in single precision,
| which is not the case in most C implementations.  K&R C said that
| "f - FLT_MAX" would be done by converting f to double, FLT_MAX to
| double, and then subtracting.

| ...

| You could argue that float.h should have put "(float)" into the
| definition of FLT_MAX.  Then you wouldn't have seen the pecularities
| of floating point arithmetic in this case.  I think it was AT&T that
| omitted the "(float)".

Hm, well, it works under Ultrix on my VAX (with or w/o the (float)
stuff).  Thus my disappointment.  Oh, well.


Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu