From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,18f7f6e041b3e0bf X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-08-16 11:17:30 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone1.gnilink.net!wn1feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!12.120.28.17!attla2!ip.att.net!usc.edu!newspeer.cts.com!galanthis.cts.com!127.0.0.1.MISMATCH!not-for-mail Sender: kst@king.cts.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Decimal Floating point was RE: Information Systems Annex was RE: Dispatching and generics - language lawyer question References: From: Keith Thompson Date: 16 Aug 2002 11:17:27 -0700 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.7 NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.68.192.180 X-Trace: 1029521847 nntp.cts.com 321 209.68.192.180 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28131 Date: 2002-08-16T11:17:27-07:00 List-Id: "Robert C. Leif" writes: > I only suggested To_Static as a possible implementation. If I understand your suggestion correctly, it isn't. It's not feasible, it's not well-defined, and it's not likely to give you what you want. I'm afraid the suggestion has only served to muddy the waters. > All I want to do is to create or be able to use a decimal type at > run-time based on either automatic or the simple-minded sum the > exponents for multiplication and subtract the exponents for division > algorithm. As I have previously stated, I would be quite happy with > a decimal floating type. Ok, there's some dispute over whether that would actually be useful, or whether the existing decimal fixed-point facilities would meet your needs, but presumably you know your application domain best. There are probably multiple software implementations of decimal floating-point. Do a Google search and grab one of them. If it's implemented in a language other than Ada, write a binding. Use it in your application. You'll lose a small amount of syntactic sugar relative to having it as a language feature, but syntactic sugar is often overrated. You won't lose any significant efficiency; since most hardware doesn't support decimal floating-point, a compiler would have to use library calls anyway. If it works out for you, if it lets you do useful things you couldn't have done without it, let us know; we may be able to help you refine your solution. -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@cts.com San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> Schroedinger does Shakespeare: "To be *and* not to be"