Inside Macintosh: PowerPC Numerics / Part 3 - Appendixes

Appendix A - SANE Versus PowerPC
Numerics

This appendix describes how PowerPC Numerics differs from the Standard Apple Numerics Environment (SANE) and tells you how to port programs that use SANE features so that they use PowerPC Numerics features instead. SANE is the numerics environment used on 680x0-based Macintosh computers. If you have written programs that perform floating-point computations for a 680x0-based Macintosh computer, that program uses SANE features. Unlike PowerPC Numerics, SANE is not compliant with the recommendations in the FPCE technical report. Compliance with the FPCE report allows a higher level of portability.

If you run a 680x0 application on a PowerPC processor-based Macintosh computer, it uses SANE instead of the PowerPC Numerics environment unless you recompile the program with a PowerPC compiler. If you want to recompile a program written for the 680x0-based Macintosh computer, you might have to modify some of your code.

Read this chapter if you are familiar with SANE and you want to know how PowerPC Numerics compares with SANE. The first section lists the differences between SANE and PowerPC Numerics. The last section provides some suggestions for porting your code.

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Appendix Contents

Comparison of SANE and PowerPC Numerics

Floating-Point Data Formats

Conversions

Expression Evaluation

Infinities, NaNs, and Denormalized Numbers

Arithmetic and Comparison Operations

Environmental Controls

Transcendental (Elementary) Functions

Porting SANE to PowerPC Numerics

Replacing Variables of Type comp

Using MathLib Instead of the SANE Library

Replacing Extended Format Variables

Using MathLib Functions

Differences in Transcendental Functions

Differences in Class and Sign Inquiries

Differences in Environmental Controls

Compatibility Tools in MathLib

Portable Declarations

Macros