Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: IEEE exception handling Message-ID: Date: 29 Nov 90 01:48:57 GMT References: <1990Nov28.224835.17336@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Distribution: na Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 29 In-reply-to: fsset@bach.lerc.nasa.gov's message of 28 Nov 90 22:48:35 GMT In article <1990Nov28.224835.17336@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> fsset@bach.lerc.nasa.gov (Scott E. Townsend) writes: ... Does manipulating the exception semantics really need to look so different? I realize that the various flavors of UNIX tend to have different capabilities regarding handling things like SIGBUS, but I had hoped the the numeric stuff could be a bit more portable than I've seen so far. It could have been, but *) IEEE 754 chose to ignore language binding issues (they had enough problems getting done anyway;> ) *) language groups (such as X3J3) have resisted putting in ieee 7|854 stuff out of deference to those nifty Cray's, IBM 3090's, VAXen, etc. *) etc. Thus everyone has had to do the best they can. This is very unfortunate, it inhibits clever use of the facilities of 7|854, and adds to the difficulty in porting software, etc. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043