16bit half floating point type as defined in IEEE-754r in D?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

s_lange wrote:
> A 16 bit precision floating point type has been defined by the IEEE in 
> the revision of the 754 floating point standard and declared as 
> optional. These small data types are heavily used in all kinds of 
> graphics rendering software. The most prominent example beeing the gl 
> libraries of the OpenGL specs.
> 
> Are there any plans to support such a data type in future versions of D?
> 
> regards Lange

D can store custom floating point types, see

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/std_numeric.html

where there's actually an example that creates the IEEE 16-bit float you 
mention:

// Define a 16-bit floating point type
alias CustomFloat!(1, 5, 10) HalfFloat;
auto x = HalfFloat(0.125);
assert(halfFloat.get!float == 0.125);

But watch for:

http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3520

which hasn't been fixed yet. Or please fix it :o).


Andrei