Complex and imaginary

[Fred Tydeman]

Subject: Complex and imaginary
 
There are two documents that may be of interest to those interested
in extending C with Complex:
 
     WG9 N177 Proposed Standard for Packages of Real and Complex Type
     Declarations and Basic Operations for Ada (including Vector and
     Matrix Types) ISO-IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG9 (Ada) Numerics Rapporteur Group
     Draft 1.0 22 April 1993
 
     WG9 N178 Proposed Standard for a Generic Package of Complex
     Elementary Functions for Ada ISO-IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG9 (Ada) Numerics
     Rapporteur Group Draft 1.3 19 April 1993
 
They are proposing using types REAL, COMPLEX, and IMAGINARY.
 
They support IEEE-754, but do not require it.  Support for signed zeros
is optional.  They require that all operations involving mixed real
and complex arithmetic construct the mathematical result by using real
arithmetic (instead of using complex arithmetic, after converting real
values to complex values).  That requirement is to facilitate
conformance with IEEE arithmetic.
 
These are not IBM's views, these are the personal ones of:
Fred Tydeman, IBM, Austin, Texas (512) 838-3322; fax (512) 838-3484
AIX S/6000 Math library architect & IBM's rep to NCEG (X3J11.1)
Internet: tydemanaibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com    uucp: uunet!ibmsupt!tydeman