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Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:30:25 -0400
From: "Peter C. Chapin" <chapinp@acm.org>
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Subject: Re: simple question on long_float/short_float
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Date: 2010-09-30T09:30:25-04:00
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On 2010-09-30 04:45, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> So Ada has
> 
> Float,
> long_float,
> short_float,
> Interfaces.Fortran.Reals
> Interfaces.Fortran.Double_Precision

A common recommendation is to avoid using the built-in types directly.
Instead define your own:

type My_Floating_Type is digits 12;

If the implementation has a floating point type with at least 12 decimal
digits of precision it will use it as the base type for My_Floating_Type
and all will be well. If the implementation can't handle that much
precision in any of its built-in types you will get a compile time
error. For example you could try

type My_Floating_Type is digits 350;

But I doubt if there is any implementation that will honor that.

The types in Interfaces.Fortran are intended for the case where you are
exchanging data with a corresponding Fortran compiler. It sounds like
you might, in fact, be doing that.

Peter