From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2006-11-15T06:13:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Is 2.0 Integer or Float?

Sander Land wrote:
> On 11/14/06, Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@path.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>> How does that work? Is there an 11-bit pattern that signifies "use the
>> remaining 53 bits as a integer"? Do math library functions respect this?
> 
> 53 bits is just the mantissa size.
> imagine using scientific notation a * 10^b with a<1 and 3 decimal
> digits, this gives you accurate integers up to 1000.
> 999  => 0.999 * 10^3  exact
> 1001=> 0.100 * 10^4 overflowed

Ok, so they aren't doing anything exceptional with the format. There's 
no special switching going on, just normal floating point math with 
integer values.

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407