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From: stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart D. Gathman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Comments on ANSI public Oct 86 Public review draft.
Message-ID: <365@bms-at.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Mar-87 20:58:02 EST
Article-I.D.: bms-at.365
Posted: Wed Mar 18 20:58:02 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Mar-87 03:37:34 EST
References: <4804@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: Business Management Systems, Inc., Fairfax, VA
Lines: 14

In article <4804@brl-adm.ARPA>,Schauble@mit-multics.arpa(Paul Schauble) writes:

> It seems to me much more in accord with reality to say that == is not
> defined for float and double. At least, like it or not, the definition
> is machine dependant and compiler dependant. It may seem ureasonable
> that (x*y == x*y) should fail, but it can and does on many machines.

A straight == comparison for float is useless on almost *any* machine.  A better
approach would be to define == to be a higher level contruct, i.e. equal
within a certain "fuzz" factor.  Unfortunately, there are several definitions
of floating fuzz.  This is where operator redefinition would be handy;
everyone could pick his own floating equality operator.
-- 
Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!dgis!bms-at!stuart>