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From: baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Alignment on RS/6000
Message-ID: <46866@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 27 Nov 90 20:20:18 GMT
References: <897@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <13342@encore.Encore.COM>
Reply-To: baum@apple.UUCP (Allen Baum)
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 22

[]
>In article <13342@encore.Encore.COM> jkenton@pinocchio.encore.com (Jeff Kenton) writes:
>
>This is probably true for NaN's and Infinities, but Denorms occur all the
>time.  printf() often generates them when dealing with floats, and the
>math library routines do also.

I still don't understand the assertion that Denorms occur all the time.
Just because printf() knows how to handle them doesn't mean that it
happens very often. Likewise the math routines. What is your evidence
than it happens "often" (whatever that means- 1% is incredibly often by
my definition in this case)

If you are saying that printf() and the math libraries can produce intermediate
results internally which are denorm, even if the inputs and outputs aren't,
would it be possible to re-write them to avoid it (given the impetus that
perhaps denorms are really slow)?


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