Re: [boost] numeric_limits defect?

From: David Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-10-19 16:44:44

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gabriel Dos Reis" <Gabriel.Dos-Reis_at_[hidden]>

>
> Actually, the rules are simple and they should not be hard to follow..
>
> If the system is conforming to LIA then the floating point values set is
> symmetric because LIA's model is sign-magnitude.
>
> For non-LIA system (actually, only systems using radic-complement
> representation should exhibit that behaviour) there is a notion of
> most-negative value which is quite distinct from what one calls min()
> in case of floating point values.
>
> Yes, the terminology is quite confusing, but I weren't there when
> LIA-1 was adopted as an international standard.

Gaby,

I think you and Matt have both missed my point (I explained this to Matt in
a private email). Suppose you have an arbitrary type T (possibly
user-defined) for which numeric_limits<> is specialized. How do you find the
minimum representable value?

-Dave

P.S. Boosters: my fix for cast.hpp still doesn't cover unbounded types.
Someone should add that (and bigint ;->)