Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!geaclib!daveb
From: daveb@geaclib.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Common Compilers for benchmarks (was: Re: benchmarking)
Message-ID: <3390@geaclib.UUCP>
Date: 8 Nov 88 02:05:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: geaclib.3390
References: <238@taux02.UUCP>
Organization: GEAC Computers, Toronto, CANADA
Lines: 24

|  In article <626@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
| with no multiplies at all, so a COBOL compiler should be able to hack
| text->binary by generating a little special-purpose subroutine for
| each different PICTURE.  (Though I have yet to see a RISC manual which
| bothers to explain how.)  

  Or you could use a mini-interpreter: generate a vector of codes
for each character in the picture (8 bits is enough, 6 used to be
sufficient), and let them reference the entry points to the
corresponding routines. (A technique also used to build some of the
CISC's edit-via-tally instructions).
  Say, pic (999v.9) becomes { 'v4', '%d', '%d', '%d', '.', '%d' }, or
whatever applies, and the convert-to-decimal subroutine uses it as a
pattern for producing character output. (the leading v4 is an indicator
about where to put the logical decimal-point).
  A friend once did this kind of thing in ratfor, as a fast,
fixed-format replacement for printf/format statements.

--dave
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.  | yunexus!lethe!dave
 Interleaf Canada Inc. |
 1550 Enterprise Rd.   | HE's so smart he's dumb.
 Mississauga, Ontario  |       --Joyce C-B