> > To my limited knowledge, an OS is integer based, so the floating > > point support is mainly "user space" and is, despite IEEE754 and due to > > the interaction between hardware, software, and programmer, really > > floating, but is there a range given for the association of OS/hardware > > telling that say sin(r) or asin(s) is accurate, at worst, at some > > epsilon near? > > It depends on the algorithm used, not on the OS. The C > standard leaves accuracy upto the implementation. If you care, > you can compare the result of a C function with what bc(1) > computes for the same function (by using a suitably large > scale).
unless the hardware doesn't actually have floating point, doesn't this depend only on the hardware? (c.f. /sys/src/libc/386/387/sin.s) 754 defines the results to be accurate to within 1 bit. obviously that's as good as you can get. minix's math(3) points to a collection of detailed man pages on the subject. - erik
