On Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 03:20 Marek Polacek via Gcc-patches < gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 02:01:47AM +0000, Koning, Paul via Gcc-patches > wrote: > > > > > > > On Nov 15, 2021, at 8:48 PM, Marek Polacek via Gcc-patches < > gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org> wrote: > > > > > > Nitpicking time. It's spelled "ones' complement" rather than "one's > > > complement". > > > > Is that so? I see Wikipedia claims it is, but there are no sources for > that claim. (There is an assertion that it is "discussed at length on the > talk page" of an article about number representation, but in fact there is > no discussion there at all.) > > > > I have never seen this spelling before, and I very much doubt its > validity. For one thing, why then have "two's complement"? For another, > to pick one random authority, J.E. Thornton in "Design of a computer -- the > Control Data 6600" refers to "one's complement" to describe the well known > mode used by that machine and its relatives. > > Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming Volume 2, page 203-4: > > "A two's complement number is complemented with respect to a single > power of 2, while a ones' complement number is complemented with respect > to a long sequence of 1s." > I think you get to do a drop mike when you pull out Knuth. :-) > >
