monetary applications [was: Python GUI app to impress the bos s?]

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

Magnus Lyckå fed this fish to the penguins on Friday 20 September 2002 
05:46 am:


> In one system it worked well for years, until
> the application was ported from VMS to HP-UX.
> It would probably have worked on HP-UX as well,
> but values calculated on one platform and stored
> in the database didn't match values calculated
> on the other.
>
        Heck -- a few years back we had that problem going from VAX VMS to 
Alpha VMS. The Alpha's registers used (if I recall the nomenclature) 
G-Float for doubles, where the VAX used D-Float. D-Float doubles are 
essentially a 32-bit float with another 32-bits of mantissa tacked on. 
G-Float, instead, adds a few bits to the exponent, and less than 
32-bits of added mantissa.

        Along with the problems of having a "double" passed to a subroutine 
that only worked "single" (on VAX you essentially were ignoring the 
extended mantissa, on the Alpha the entire exponent was trash).

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