IEEE Floating Point Standard

(IEEE 754) "{IEEE} Standard for Binary

{Floating-Point} Arithmetic (ANSI/IEEE Std 754-1985)" or {IEC}

559: "Binary floating-point arithmetic for microprocessor

systems". A {standard}, used by many {CPU}s and {FPU}s, which

defines formats for representing floating-point numbers;

representations of special values (e.g. {infinity}, very small

values, {NaN}); five {exceptions}, when they occur, and what

happens when they do occur; four {rounding modes}; and a set

of floating-point operations that will work identically on any

conforming system.

IEEE 754 specifies four formats for representing

floating-point values: single-precision (32-bit),

double-precision (64-bit), single-extended precision (80-bit?)

and double-extended precision (128-bit). Only 32-bit values

are required by the standard, the others are optional though

64-bit is required by standard {C}.

[On-line document?]

(1997-12-19)