ajb@spamcop.net
G'day all.
Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
Hmm. Personally, I've never seen an algorithm where comparing for exact equality was algorithmically necessary.
One trick I've occasionally used is to avoid the need for a discriminated union of floating point and integer types by just using a floating point number.
IMHO it is a perfectly good idea to use the FP processor for integer computations. You can use the Inexact Trap as Overflow Exception, a service you don't get from i386 (and most other) hardware for int operations. Of course your integers are limited to 24bit+sign in single precision and 54bit+sign in double. In i387 extended precision you get 64bit+sign. I would consider a good idea if ghc would provide language support to this sort of integers. -- Dipl.-Math. Wilhelm Bernhard Kloke Institut fuer Arbeitsphysiologie an der Universitaet Dortmund Ardeystrasse 67, D-44139 Dortmund, Tel. 0231-1084-257 PGP: http://vestein.arb-phys.uni-dortmund.de/~wb/mypublic.key