IEEE Floating Point Standard

standard, mathematics (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 CPUs and FPUs, 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 formats for representing floating-point

values: single-precision (32-bit) is required,

double-precision (64-bit) is optional. The standard also

mentions that some implementations may include single-extended

precision (80-bit) and double-extended precision (128-bit)

formats.

[On-line document?]

(2003-06-17)