From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 23 11:17:30 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1168416A4CE for ; Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:17:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from VARK.homeunix.com (adsl-69-104-247-110.dsl.pltn13.pacbell.net [69.104.247.110]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 053EF43D66 for ; Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:16:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from VARK.homeunix.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by VARK.homeunix.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i0NJCOKu022431; Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:12:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: (from das@localhost) by VARK.homeunix.com (8.12.10/8.12.10/Submit) id i0NJCODP022430; Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:12:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from das@FreeBSD.ORG) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:12:24 -0800 From: David Schultz To: Poul-Henning Kamp Message-ID: <20040123191224.GA22288@VARK.homeunix.com> Mail-Followup-To: Poul-Henning Kamp , current@FreeBSD.ORG References: <14141.1074670873@critter.freebsd.dk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <14141.1074670873@critter.freebsd.dk> cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: historical stuff in math(3) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:17:30 -0000 On Wed, Jan 21, 2004, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > > Isn't all the vax-D format related stuff math(3) getting pretty old ? Yes, and it is largely irrelevant to the present libm implementation. Regardless of the Alpha architecture's support for it, a good deal of work stands in the way of us supporting anything that doesn't look like IEEE 754 floating point.[1] On the other hand, the VAX section ties in with the exposition on IEEE 754 floating point. It would do little good to just remove it without updating, expanding, and otherwise improving the rest of the document. I looked at revamping math.3 a while ago but forgot about it. I'll put it on my TODO list in any case, but anyone else is welcome to work on it as well. [1] I think the next big thing in floating point is going to be efficient hardware support for interval arithmetic, and we should be able to support that without too much ado as long as the ends of the intervals are represented in 754 format.