> In other words, if I can assure that data exported and then imported > will always, under all circumstances, compare the same to the original, > would that be enough of a requirement? In other words, if I offer a > format that is assured of preserving both mantissa and exponent > precision and range, as well as all extra attributes (+/-Infinity and > NaN), but does not guarantee that the semantically identical constructs > are told apart (+0 vs. -0, and the different NaNs), would that format be > acceptable?
If you care about the +/- for +/-Infinity, you must also care about +/-0 too, so you get the right type of infinity if you divide with 0... so +0 and -0 are far from being semantically identical. Cheers, Csaba. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly