From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Oct 11 00:36:11 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id AAA05996 for hackers-outgoing; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 00:36:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp20.portal.net.au [202.12.71.120]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id AAA05972 for ; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 00:36:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word.smith.net.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA00733; Sat, 11 Oct 1997 17:01:49 +0930 (CST) Message-Id: <199710110731.RAA00733@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: "Russell L. Carter" cc: gjohnson@nola.srrc.usda.gov, tlambert@primenet.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Floating point exceptions In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 10 Oct 1997 18:46:05 MST." <199710110146.SAA08283@dnstoo.consys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 17:01:47 +0930 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > |> FreeBSD (so I can replace Linux). My understanding is that FreeBSD traps > |> FPE's. Is there a way for me to change the FreeBSD source code to mask FPE's > |> rather than trap them? Better yet, can I do that for a specific application at > |> compile time? Your assistance is greatly appreciated. > | > |Fix: Correct the code to not generate exceptions > > Hmm, I don't think so. There are a variety of reasons that NA people > want to use those carefully thought out exceptions. Find > 'em yerself. In the original case the NA people weren't using the exceptions; they were ignoring them. IMHO FreeBSD does the correct thing; it notifies you of the exception. It is your responsibility to decide what to do about it. I have spent not a little time carefully explaining to various scientific programmers about arithmetic exceptions and why they should care about them, and so far have had a 100% conversion rate. If you look a physicist in the eye and say "unquantifiable error", they will usually listen. mike