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- Xref: sparky comp.unix.ultrix:9575 comp.sys.dec:7189 comp.lang.c:20353
- Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.sys.dec,comp.lang.c
- Path: sparky!uunet!scifi!acheron!philabs!linus!agate!ames!eos!kozon
- From: kozon@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Tom Kozon)
- Subject: unix-ultrix VAX-IEEE number conversions
- Message-ID: <1993Jan28.201135.25383@eos.arc.nasa.gov>
- Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 20:11:35 GMT
- Lines: 26
-
- Hello,
-
- I am currently in the process of porting some software from
- one system (DEC VAX 785 running BSD 4.3 unix) to another (Decsystem
- 5100 running ULTRIX RISC V4.2). Some of this software has the function of
- reading a binary stream of VAX data. While integer data types are read on
- the Decsystem with no difficulties, I am finding that I will need to
- convert floating point and double precision numbers from VAX into IEEE
- format. So far, I've written a couple of standalone test programs (running
- on the Decsystem) using the C library functions developed to do these
- conversions. I've been able to successfully use " ftoi " to make accurate
- floating point conversions with no problems. However, the function that
- transforms the double precision numbers (i.e., " dtoi ") seems to present
- some special difficulties. In general, it seems to convert a VAX double
- precision number into its IEEE format (mostly, but sometimes not), but
- almost never returns a " 0 " integer value indicating the conversion
- has been successfully made. According to the on-line documentation, if
- this function returns a non-zero value, it does not do the conversion.
- So, why would my experience be accurate transformations with nonzero
- function return values? The C program that uses dtoi generally works
- in the same manner as the one using ftoi, so these results seem surprising.
- Any suggestions/clues on this matter would be greatly appreciated --
- thanks in advance for posted and/or E-mail replies!
-
- Tom
- kozon@eos.arc.nasa.gov
-