Desirable floating-point arithmetic and elementary functions for numerical computation

  • Authors:

  • D. E. Hull

  • Affiliations:

  • -

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGNUM Conference on the Programming Environment for Development of Numerical Software
  • Year:
  • 1978

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The purpose of this talk is to summarize proposed specifications for floating-point arithmetic and elementary functions. The topics considered are: the base of the number system, precision control, number representation, arithmetic operations, other basic operations, elementary functions, and exception handling. The possibility of doing with-out fixed-point arithmetic is also mentioned. The specifications are intended to be entirely at the level of a programming language such as Fortran. The emphasis is on convenience and simplicity from the user's point of view. Conforming to such specifications would have obvious beneficial implications for the portability of numerical software, and for proving programs correct, as well as attempting to provide facilities which are most suitable for the user. The specifications are not complete in every detail, but it is intended that they be complete “in spirit” - some further details, especially syntactic details, would have to be provided, but the proposals are otherwise relatively complete.