The need for D-scussion (was Re: D Wishlist)

[Karl Heuer]

In article <3734 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> wesommer at athena.mit.edu (William Sommerfeld) writes:
>On just about any reasonable processor, if you're computing someething
>% or / a power of two, you can turn the operation into an `and' (with
>(2**n)-1) or `shift right' (by n), respectively, which _is_ in hardware

Assuming a two's complement representation and that divide rounds toward zero
(as on a VAX, the usual standard of a "reasonable processor"), your suggested
optimization is not valid if the numerator could be negative.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl at haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint