On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 1:16 AM, Roland Mainz <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 12:28 AM, Roland Mainz <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> [Removing [email protected]]
>> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 12:14 AM, Roland Mainz <[email protected]> 
>> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 10:57 PM, Roland Mainz <[email protected]> 
>>> wrote:
>>>> On Sun, Aug 11, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Cedric Blancher
>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On 11 August 2013 10:43, Tina Harriott <[email protected]> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 7:28 PM, Glenn Fowler <[email protected]> 
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> On Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:02:39 +0200 Tina Harriott wrote:
>>> [snip]
>>>>>> But why does nextafter() misbehave if I want to use a datatype smaller
>>>>>> than "long double"? Accuracy is a good thing, but in this case we
>>>>>> iterate too fine-grained, meaning the code should iterate over the
>>>>>> smallest possible steps of a double, but not over the smallest
>>>>>> possible steps of a long double.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone have a good idea how to fix this in ksh?
>>>>
>>>> Grumpf... yes. Technically I feared that day may come when
>>>> |nextafter()| and |nexttoward()| were added in ksh93... ;-/
>>>>
>>>> The issue is more or less like this: Both |nextafter(f|l|)\(\)| and
>>>> |nexttoward(f|l|)\(\)| step over the smallest possible quantity for
>>>> the specific { |float|, |double|, |long double| }-datatype and
>>>> therefore (for example) using |nextafterl()| (intended for |long
>>>> double|) for a |float| doesn't work because it does so small steps
>>>> that they cannot be represented in a |float| ... that causes the
>>>> endless loop in Tina's example.
>>>>
>>>> The fix would be to "remember" the datatype (e.g.  { |float|,
>>>> |double|, |long double| }) for a given variable and pass that down to
>>>> |arith_exec()| and call the specific version of |nextafter()| and
>>>> |nexttoward()| for that datatype, for example:
>>>> - variables declared via typeset -s -E/-X should use
>>>> |nextafterf()|/|nexttowardf()|
>>>> - variables declared via typeset    -E/-X should use
>>>> |nextafter()|/|nexttoward()|
>>>> - variables declared via typeset -l -E/-X should use
>>>> |nextafterl()|/|nexttowardl()|
>>>> ... if the platforms libc/libm do not have a matching
>>>> |nextafter(f|l|)\(\)|/|nexttoward(f|l|)\(\)| variant for the input
>>>> datatype then the "function not found"-error should be thrown.
>>>>
>>>> Note that we do _not_ have to change the logic for all math
>>>> functions... AFAIK |nextafter()| and |nexttoward()| are the only
>>>> exceptions which require special handling...
>>>>
>>>> Glenn: What do you think ?
>>>
>>> Attached (as "astksh20130807_short_float_nextafter001.diff.txt") is a
>>> _prototype_ patch which shows how it would look like:
>>> -- snip --
>>> $ ksh -c 'typeset -s -E x=4 ; print $(( x=nextafter(x,5) ))'
>>> 4.0000004768371582
>>> $ ksh -c 'typeset -E x=4 ; print $(( x=nextafter(x,5) ))'
>>> 4.00000000000000089
>>> $ ksh -c 'typeset -l -E x=4 ; print $(( x=nextafter(x,5) ))'
>>> 4 # this is not exactly 4 but it is so a tiny step away from 4 that
>>> normal %f output doesn't recognise it
>>> -- snip --
>>>
>>> * ToDo:
>>> - Add |nexttoward()| support
>>> - Add defines for type size (|float|, |double|, |long double|)
>>> - Add error code in case if one of the { |float|, |double|, |long
>>> double| }-variants is missing
>>> - Somehow make the code look better
>>>
>>> Comments/rants/feedback welcome...
>>
>> Grumpf... attached (as
>> "astksh20130807_short_float_nextafter002.diff.txt") is a fixed
>> patch... the previous one used |double| in case that the datatype of
>> the arguments couldn't be obtained... the patch corrects this and adds
>> support for |nexttoward()| ...
>
> More thought about this:
> src/cmd/ksh93/data/math.tab could return all three variants (for {
> |float|, |double|, |long double| }) and |fun| in |arith_exec()| would
> be a pointer to an array of these three variants. That would make the
> support for |float| and |double| generic and remove all the
> |if()|/|switch()| mess from the "hot" codepath...

That is IMO the only solution which covers *all* corner cases, i.e. if
an overflow/underflow or creation of subnormal numbers in a math
function happens. Smaller datatypes mean you'll hit the limits earlier
than for larger datatypes and not all float/double functions behave
like doing the same operation with a long double datatype and then
cast the result to the requested datatype.

Irek
_______________________________________________
ast-developers mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.research.att.com/mailman/listinfo/ast-developers

Reply via email to