is real an 80-bit type or not?

Jarrett Billingsley kb3ctd2 at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 18 10:38:47 PST 2006


"Anders F Björklund" <afb at algonet.se> wrote in message 
news:em5irr$1l2o$1 at digitaldaemon.com...

> But "real" is not defined as an 80-bit type...
> When 256-bit floats arrive, they will be real.

That's my point.  A 128-bit float would only be 'real' as long as it's the 
largest floating point type available.  So there'd need to be another name 
for them -- preferably 'quad'.

> I suggested using "extended" for fixed 80-bit.
> And that real should be converted to an alias.

I think early in D's development 'real' was called 'extended'.  There are 
still a few vestiges (commented out stuff) in the compiler source if I 
remember.  That was before my time with D, though, so I couldn't tell you 
why it was changed.  'extended' does make more sense, and since 'real' is a 
qualitative type, it should be an alias (defined by the compiler, perhaps). 




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