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From: jc@piaget.UUCP (John Cornelius)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: How does compiled code use the floating point unit?
Message-ID: <131@piaget.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 12:39:34 EST
Article-I.D.: piaget.131
Posted: Thu Dec 11 12:39:34 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Dec-86 21:16:39 EST
References: <394@houxs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jc@piaget.UUCP (John Cornelius, System Manager)
Organization: International Widget
Lines: 14
Keywords: cc -f blivit.c

David Wolverton gives 3 of the most common methods for doing floating
point in an environment where the availability of floating point 
hardware is unknown.  I suggest that the most common method, however,
is to assume that floating point hardware does not exist.  In Unix this
is accomplished by having the cc command map to cc -f which uses library
routines that do not check for the presence of floating point hardware.

If floating point hardware is subsequently installed, the C compiler
invocation routine (/bin/cc usually) is changed to cause pass 2 to emit
actual floating point code of the desired type.

-- 
John Cornelius
(...!sdcsvax!piaget!jc)