[Cfp-interest 2898] Re: standardize printf %a/%A

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2023-09-05 14:06:10 -0400, Steve (Swift) Canon wrote:
> My own preference is for rule 1 that you suggest (or maybe a modification that aligns subnormals with the minimum normal), but the rule that I have most-often heard requested by users is “the apparent LSB of the printed representation should be the LSB of the significand” (so that if 1.xxxxx8p0 is representable, so is 1.xxxxx1p0).
> 
> This would have us format binary64 as 1.xxxxxxxxxxxxxpE and 80-bit as [8-f].xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxpE, but binary32 would be [8-f].xxxxxpE, which doesn’t line up with binary64.

This has some advantages, but when an output precision is provided,
this does not define how the output should be done, and whatever
the choice, this will yield inconsistencies.

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