C-Compiler Validation Suites

Ron Natalie <ron> ron at brl-sem.ARPA
Thu Nov 13 11:43:32 AEST 1986


In article <1189 at kontron.UUCP>, stephan at kontron.UUCP (Stephan W. Wendl) writes:
>
> As far as I can recall at the moment, the UNIX kernel doesn't use floating
> point data (of course I might be wrong).

At least as far as BSD goes, you're wrong.  load averages are computed
using floating point, for example.  In the old days it was true.  The
kernel not only did not use floating point, it didn't use longs either
but rather an array of two ints that the kernel code took care to do
the carry when necessary.  Of course, there was no unsigned ints either
but using "char *" for these worked just fine.

Besides, everyone knows that the first step in verification is to
compile the compiler.

-Ron



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