bigfloat II

[Paul D. Anderson]

Joel C. Salomon Wrote:

> Paul D. Anderson wrote:
> > Multiplying two floats produces a number whose potential precision is the sum of the operands' precision. We need a method to determine what the precision of the product should be. Not that it's difficult to come up with an answer -- but we have to agree on something.
> 
> Not more precision than the input data deserve.  The decimal
> floating-point numbers of the new IEEE 754-2008 carry with them a notion
> of “how precise is this result?”; this might be a good starting point
> for discussion.
> 
> —Joel Salomon

The implementation will comply with IEEE 754-2008. I just wanted to illustrate that precision can depend on the operation as well as the operands.

Paul