[Cfp-interest 2429] Re: HAS_SUBNORM paper

[Jim Thomas]

What is the purpose of the added parenthetical text in footnote 27? I find the “and/or” confusing.

The change to footnote 28 would be substantive if it weren’t in a footnote. An implementation following the current footnote might have defined the macros as “absent” where the suggest change would indicate that was wrong.

- Jim Thomas

> On Apr 23, 2022, at 10:41 AM, Fred J. Tydeman <tydeman at tybor.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 17:44:53 -0700 Jim Thomas wrote:
>> 
>> Another problem is that footnotes 27 and 28 seem to give inconsistent interpretations.  For example, with FTZ and not
>> DAZ, footnote 27 implies type_HAS_SUBNORM is intended to be -1 (indeterminant) but footnote 28 implies
>> type_HAS_SUBNORM is intended to be 0 (absent). Likewise for IEC 60559 arithmetic with abrupt underflow.
>> 
>> Even with both DAZ and FTZ, footnote 27 might suggest type_HAS_SUBNORM is intended to be -1, because DAZ and
>> FTZ don't apply to bit operations absolute value.
>> 
>> Footnotes are not normative, but here they're the only clues for what it is meant by "support subnormal numbers".
> 
> Agreed.  I have uploaded to our wiki N29XX.HTM as a first pass of
> the second version of the HAS_SUBNORM paper.  Comments welcome.
> 
> 
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> Fred J. Tydeman        Tydeman Consulting
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