Re[4]: [fpc-devel] format function

[Daniël Mantione]

Op Thu, 12 Oct 2006, schreef ???? ???????????:

> > representable in an exact way on any IEEE standard-compliant fpu. The  =

> =

> Of course. But the result of "format" is user-oriented. User is not suppo=
sed to know about negative zero, denormal numbers, negative infinity and th=
e whole IEEE 754.
> =

> If the user is supposed to understand that "-0.000" means "a small negati=
ve number", then it's ok. If the user will be terrified, it would be bad.

Grandma is not the only user of a computer. A computer is a precision =

instrument, usable by scientists. Format is used to display numbers in =

scientific notation.

 0 means "somewhere between 0 and 2^-127".
-0 means "somewhere between -2^-127 and 0".

The difference is of scientific meaning. If there were no negative zero, =

the precision around zero would be halved.

Dani=EBl