Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Here's a challenge for floating point lovers.
Message-ID: <1991Jan22.180927.29232@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1991Jan21.215629.8393@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 1991 18:09:27 GMT

In article <1991Jan21.215629.8393@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Ray Butterworth <rbutterworth@watdragon.waterloo.edu> writes:
>Ever tried to come up with a manifest for a specific floating point value?
> ...
>Does ANSI X3.159 require the ability to define such a constant?

No.  Nobody's come up with a good way of doing this that I know of,
especially when portability is desired.

My dim recollection (references aren't handy) is that systems conforming
to the IEEE floating-point standard are required to provide string<->number
conversions that are sufficiently well-behaved that you can rely on the
exact results, if you do them right.
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry