Re: Classic RW

"Robert Wagner" <robert@wagner.net.yourmammaharvests> wrote in message
 news:8ue9j05arsd8h5jhknobv9a46pur41tfhc@
4ax.com...
 
>
> It is stored in memory as '0345', if decimal, or 0159, if binary/hex.
> If you multiplied it by 1.23, the result in decimal would look like
> '42435'. The decimal point is used  to align receiving fields.

Last time I looked, "is", "is treated as" and "is stored in memory as"
aren't synonymous.    I believe I've pointed that out before.  What you
wrote was "All fixed-point numbers are integers."

If what you *really* meant was "All implementations of my acquaintance store
fixed-point numbers in memory as integers", then I'd suggest that that's
what you should have written.  I wouldn't have a quibble with that.  Even
the shorthand "Most implementations store fixed-point numbers as integers"
doesn't rankle.  The standard doesn't require this, however.

I know environments in which integers, fixed-point and floating-point data
items are "stored in memory" identically; the only differentiation among
them is how they are handled and treated.  In that environment, in fact,
there is no requirement that integer data actually *be* in "canonic integer
form"; a normalized floating-point representation of the value serves
equally well and is just as exact a representation.  Thus, in that
environment, a fixed-point numeric value may be stored, *not* as an integer
defined for that implementation, but as a *floating-point* item that happens
to have an exact value.  So I would take exception to the elision of "of my
acquaintance" because it would demonstrably turn the statement from "true"
to "false".

How something is *handled* and how something are *stored* may be entirely
orthogonal to what something *is*.

-Chuck Stevens