I think if I understand correctly you are suggesting something like:
ÝNaN,x¨
where "x" is some non-NaN IEEE 754 bit-pattern that carries the payload
of decorations.
Almost. It doesn't have to be a 754 bit pattern; indeed, if one wants
to perform boolean operations on the bits it's better to use a Uint.
On platforms where this has to live in FP registers that are more than
just bit buckets this might not work, so the choice will have to be up
to the platform-specific aspects of the implementation.
Michel.
---Sent: 2010-10-07 01:22:13 UTC
I think if I understand correctly you are suggesting something like:
[NaN,x]
where "x" is some non-NaN IEEE 754 bit-pattern that carries the payload
of
decorations.
Did I get it right?
If I may suggest, having used isNaN() to filter out
things of the form [qNaN,x], there are no longer any
constraints on x. It need not be a floating-point
number at all. It can be anything. A collection of
bits. A pointer. An ASCII string. Anything.
There is even precedent for this in 754 applications.
Feel free to define anything that suits your purpose. - Dan