[Bug 4231] K2-Literals-7

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=4231





------- Comment #3 from mike@saxonica.com  2007-01-16 12:47 -------
I think the meaning of "underflow" in terms of numerical arithmetic is well
known and the F+O spec is clearly using the term in the general sense of IEEE
754. It means an operation that produces a result which is so close to zero
that it cannot be accurately represented. See for example

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_underflow

The term is generally used in connection with floating point arithmetic, where
it means that the exponent is smaller (closer to minus infinity) than the
smallest exponent allowed. It's moot what the F+O spec means when it uses the
term in relation to xs:decimal arithmetic. I think the reasoning is simply that
some implementations of xs:decimal might use a floating decimal point and might
therefore be subject to underflow conditions.

Received on Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:48:03 UTC