On Jan 17, 2007, at 4:44 PM, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote:
C++ forces compilers to reveal their semantics for built-in types through numeric_limits<>. Every time you change the behaviour, you also implicilty break an ABI.
No, the ABI does not document that the answer never changes between translation units, only that for this translation unit, what the answer happens to be. If it said what you thought it said, you'd be able to quote it. If you think I'm wrong, I look forward to the quote.
Consider the ABI document that says that the size of int is 4. One cannot meaningfully use a compiler flag to change the size of an int to something other than 4 because then, that flag breaks the ABI. An ABI document _can_ state that the answer to the question must be true for float, but, absent it stating that it is true, there isn't a document that says that it is true.
