Re: Thoughts about a floating point exception fix

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>> [software-emulated VAX FP]
>> How does that differ from just using reserved operands (which the
>> hardware already knows how to fault on)?  Would the simulated FP
>> include things operationally like infinities or quiet NaNs [...]?
> I still don't understand what exactly needs to be fixed in the
> software (and if we have to do it in pkgsrc because upstream is
> stupid, so be it).

I don't understand details myself - I do not have the luxury of playing
with VAXen at present - but, based on upthread comments, it looks to me
as though python and/or awk have testsuites that rely on infinities and
NaNs, possibly as well as details such as you mention, exact ranges and
underflow/overflow points and such.

Whether the programs will work if you ignore the testsuite failures?  I
don't know.  It probably depends on exactly what you're doing with
them.  I'm sure that, for example, there are a few awk programs that
depend on floating-point details, but I'm equally sure there are a
whole lot of awk programs that are perfectly happy without any floating
point at all.

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