On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 at 15:05, Fred J. Tydeman <tydeman_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:35:25 +0000 Jonathan Wakely via Liaison wrote:
> >
> >There is some overlap with parts of
> >http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2022/p2551r0.pdf
> >regarding what "has_denorm" means for the new C++ traits. But the answer
> to
> >"what does the C macro mean?" and "what does the C++ trait mean?" should
> >not be the same, as they're actually asking different questions, and so
> the
> >proposed changes in this paper do not impact C++.
>
> I have looked at p2551r0 and p1841r2 and I do not find "has_denorm" in
> either.
>

The new denorm_min introduced by P1841 is supposed to make it unnecessary,
but doesn't really do so, which is the subject of question 1 in P2551.
Question 4 in P2551 is also related.


>
> The only version of C++ that I have is WG21 N4860. In it, I do find
> "has_denorm"
> and it appears to be equivalent to C's *_HAS_SUBNORM.
>

Yes, and P1841 adds a new way to get that same info, but requires you to
check whether std::denorm_min<T>::value == std::norm_min<T>::value, which
is awkward. That's what P2251 Q1 is about.


> It appears that neither standard can give those a useful value if the
> treatment
> of subnormals can be changed at runtime (as can be done on ARM chips).
> They also do not cover the two case where:
> operands are flushed to zero, but results are not flushed.
> results are flushed, but operands are not flushed.
> C implementations should define the macros as: -1 indeterminable.
> C++ implementations should define as: denorm_indeterminate
> While that is the correct value, it is not useful.
>
> Aside: References to 559 should be to 60559.
>

That's https://cplusplus.github.io/LWG/issue2248



> There should be "norm_max" for the maximum normalized number.
>

That's std::numeric_limits<T>::max() in all published standards, and
std::finite_max<T>::value with the P1841 additions.



>
> The definition of "epsilon" in C++ differs from that in C. C added
> "normalized" to the definition. It mattes for the case where
> long double is implemented as a pair of doubles.
>
> Does "round_error" cover subnormals numbers flushed to zero?
>
> ---
> Fred J. Tydeman Tydeman Consulting
> tydeman_at_[hidden] Testing, numerics, programming
> +1 (702) 608-6093 Vice-chair of PL22.11 (ANSI "C")
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>