RE: Strange result with exponents...

I'm sorry, but this is the *nix influence on OS/400.  Plain as day, to me.

Make it compatible with IEEE, which (obviously) wasn't a spec with the 400
in mind, aTALL.  Regardless of whether it was documented or not, WHY reduce
precision in the first place...?!?

So I see Multiple Major Disconnects between the OS developers and the
customer, in this scenario.  All the way up and down the line.

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Joe Pluta

| > From: Buck
| >
| > I realise that this isn't an explanation of why the results are
| different
| > between V5R1 and V5R2.  It does seem to be a disclaimer that we
| shouldn't
| > expect float to be terribly precise, which is a different attribute
| from
| > repeatable.
|
| And thus from a backwards compatibility standpoint, it's pretty clear
| that changing exponentiation to use a floating point value (if that's
| indeed what happened) actually reduced precision.  This should have at
| least been enough to warrant a warning somewhere in the release notes
| (and there may well have been, I haven't read the release notes for V5R2
| yet).
|
| Think about it: if indeed exponentiation was changed, and somebody is
| currently using exponentiation in a production program, that program is
| now possibly giving erroneous results.  That is something IBM has been
| extremely good about in the past, and is something I'd hope they'd
| continue to adhere to: "Break no code (and if you do, let the users no
| in REALLY BIG letters)."
|
| Joe