[cfp-interest 3727] Re: Comments on cfp3691 RoundingMode

[Damian McGuckin]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2025, Jim Thomas wrote:

> C2Y 7.6.1 says: "A floating-point control mode is a system variable whose
> value may be set by the user to affect the subsequent behavior of
> floating-point arithmetic.?
> The meaning of ?mode" in IEEE 754 is the same.
> 
> 754-1985 has the definition:
>
>       mode. A variable that a user may set, sense, save, and restore
>       to control the execution of subsequent arithmetic operations. 
> 
> 754-2019 refers to the ?dynamic-mode variable?, e.g. in: "The implementation
> initializes a dynamic-mode variable to the default value for the dynamic
> mode."

You are right. Thanks Jim. Silly me.  754-2019 says

 	dynamic mode: An optional method of dynamically setting attributes
 	by means of operations of this standard to set, test, save, and
 	restore them.

I know what it means but it reads very strangely. Then again, I am getting 
enough of IEEE 754 definition overload at the moment so I won't go there.

If some of us ever meet Lagrange and Cauchy and their contemporaries in 
the afterlife, we are going to get severely chastised for abusing their 
use of language (like the word "mode").

Lots more thinking is needed - Damian