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In the strict mode, the predefined operations of a floating point type
shall satisfy the accuracy requirements specified here and shall avoid
or signal overflow in the situations described. This behavior is
presented in terms of a model of floating point arithmetic that builds
on the concept of the canonical form, See section A.5.3 Attributes of Floating Point Types.
Static Semantics
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Associated with each floating point type is an infinite set of model
numbers. The model numbers of a type are used to define the accuracy
requirements that have to be satisfied by certain predefined operations
of the type; through certain attributes of the model numbers, they are
also used to explain the meaning of a user-declared floating point type
declaration. The model numbers of a derived type are those of the parent
type; the model numbers of a subtype are those of its type.
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The model numbers of a floating point type T are zero and all the values
expressible in the canonical form (for the type T), in which mantissa
has T'Model_Mantissa digits and exponent has a value greater than or
equal to T'Model_Emin. (These attributes are defined in See section G.2.2 Model-Oriented Attributes of Floating Point Types.)
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A model interval of a floating point type is any interval whose bounds
are model numbers of the type. The model interval of a type T associated
with a value v is the smallest model interval of T that includes v. (The
model interval associated with a model number of a type consists of that
number only.)
Implementation Requirements
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The accuracy requirements for the evaluation of certain predefined
operations of floating point types are as follows.
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An operand interval is the model interval, of the type specified for the
operand of an operation, associated with the value of the operand.
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For any predefined arithmetic operation that yields a result of a
floating point type T, the required bounds on the result are given by a
model interval of T (called the result interval) defined in terms of the
operand values as follows:
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The result interval is the smallest model interval of T that includes
the minimum and the maximum of all the values obtained by applying the
(exact) mathematical operation to values arbitrarily selected from the
respective operand intervals.
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The result interval of an exponentiation is obtained by applying the
above rule to the sequence of multiplications defined by the exponent,
assuming arbitrary association of the factors, and to the final division
in the case of a negative exponent.
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The result interval of a conversion of a numeric value to a floating
point type T is the model interval of T associated with the operand
value, except when the source expression is of a fixed point type with a
small that is not a power of T'Machine_Radix or is a fixed point
multiplication or division either of whose operands has a small that is
not a power of T'Machine_Radix; in these cases, the result interval is
implementation defined.
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For any of the foregoing operations, the implementation shall deliver a
value that belongs to the result interval when both bounds of the result
interval are in the safe range of the result type T, as determined by
the values of T'Safe_First and T'Safe_Last; otherwise,
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if T'Machine_Overflows is True, the implementation shall either deliver
a value that belongs to the result interval or raise Constraint_Error;
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if T'Machine_Overflows is False, the result is implementation defined.
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For any predefined relation on operands of a floating point type T, the
implementation may deliver any value (i.e., either True or False)
obtained by applying the (exact) mathematical comparison to values
arbitrarily chosen from the respective operand intervals.
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The result of a membership test is defined in terms of comparisons of
the operand value with the lower and upper bounds of the given range or
type mark (the usual rules apply to these comparisons).
Implementation Permissions
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If the underlying floating point hardware implements division as
multiplication by a reciprocal, the result interval for division (and
exponentiation by a negative exponent) is implementation defined.
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