Re: [boost] clarification about limits.hpp

From: Ulrich Eckhardt (doomster_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-02 13:21:54

On Saturday 30 June 2007 10:29:08 John Maddock wrote:
> Ulrich Eckhardt wrote:
[...]
> > #if defined(_BIG_ENDIAN)
> >   0x7f80 << (sizeof(int)*CHAR_BIT-16),
> > #else
> >   0x7f800000,
> > #endif
[...]
> OK, first off I've never had access to sparc machines, so I would have been
> applying a patch that someone else had submitted, unfortunately I can't
> locate the original message at present :-(
>
> The reason for there being a difference on *some* big-endian machines is
> that while the byte order of int's has swapped around, floats retain the
> same IEEE-specified order.  But, that implies this code does indeed look
> wrong!

Okay. I'm not even really sure what the code does in general, maybe some of 
the STLport people that initially stumbled across it can determine what it's 
supposed to do and then add according unittests. If this had some cryptic 
meaning, those should unveil it...

> However, this code was only ever used for gcc-2.95 if I remember correctly,
> so it's effectly depricated fluff these days...
>
> Not sure if this helps, John.

It does!

Uli