Inside Macintosh: PowerPC Numerics / Part 3 - Appendixes

Appendix D - FPCE Recommendations for Compilers

This appendix gives some recommendations for what compilers should implement to comply with the FPCE technical report. The PowerPC Numerics library provides much of this compliance, but some aspects of the report must be implemented by the compiler. This appendix describes those features that must be implemented in the compiler and recommends how they should be implemented. You should read this appendix if you are a compiler designer, or if you are a programmer and want to know what numeric features to look for in your compiler.

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Appendix Contents

Environmental Access Switch

Contraction Operator Switch

Hexadecimal Floating-Point Constants

Implementing an Expression Evaluation Method

Expression Evaluation Without Widest Need

Expression Evaluation With Widest Need

Floating-Point Constant Evaluation

Initializing Floating-Point Objects

Compiler Extensions for Expression Evaluation

Determining the Expression Evaluation Method

Widening for Efficiency