Certain aspects of the IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic are discussed in this manual. To learn about IEEE arithmetic, see the 18-page Standard. See Appendix G, "References," on page 237, for a brief bibliography on IEEE arithmetic.

This guide describes the floating-point environment supported through a combination of software and hardware by the Solaris operating system running on SPARC, Intel, and PowerPC systems. This guide refers to compiler products that are components of the Sun WorkShop Compilers^TM 4.2 release.

• Chapter 1, "Introduction," introduces the floating-point environment.

• Chapter 2, "IEEE Arithmetic," describes the IEEE arithmetic model, IEEE formats, and underflow.

• Chapter 3, "The Math Libraries," describes the mathematics libraries provided with Sun WorkShop Compilers 4.2.

• Chapter 4, "Exceptions and Exception Handling," describes exceptions and shows how to detect, locate, and handle them.

• Appendix A, "Examples," contains example programs.

• Appendix B, "SPARC Behavior and Implementation," describes the floating-point hardware options for SPARC workstations.

• Appendix C, "Intel Behavior and Implementation," lists Intel and SPARC compatibility issues related to the floating-point units used in Intel systems.

• Appendix D, "PowerPC Behavior and Implementation," discusses features and compatibility issues specific to the floating-point arithmetic implemented in PowerPC systems.

• Appendix E, "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic," is an edited reprint of a paper by David Goldberg that is a tutorial on floating-point arithmetic.

• Appendix F, "Standards Compliance," discusses standards compliance.

• Appendix G, "References," includes a list of references and related documentation.

• "Glossary," contains a definition of terms.

The David Goldberg paper is now Appendix E, "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic," in this guide.