Remove real type

[Bob Jones]

"Robert Jacques" <sandford at jhu.edu> wrote in message 
news:op.vbjul3ov26stm6 at sandford.myhome.westell.com...
> On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:48:20 -0300, strtr <strtr at spam.com> wrote:
>
>> abcd Wrote:
>>
>>> On the other hand, being an engineer, I use the reals all the time and
>>> want them to stay. I would use the max precision supported by the cpu
>>> then fixed precision like double any day.
>>>
>>> -sk
>>
>> For me it's the exact opposite, reproducibility/portability is key. My 
>> problem with real is that I am always afraid my floats get upgraded to 
>> them internally somewhere/somehow.
>
> You do realize that the x86 floating point unit _always_ promotes floats 
> and doubles to reals internally? The only way around it is for the 
> compiler to use MMX/SSE unit for everything instead.

You can set the internal precision of the x87 unit to 32, 64 or 80 bits, it 
just defaults to 80, and as there's little if any performance difference 
between the 3 modes, thats how it's usualy set.