Re: Motion to finalise interval literals
Baker
On 9 Jun 2013, at 12:25, Ralph Baker Kearfott wrote:
> John Pryce wrote to Richard Fateman:
>> ...I find your arguments quite strong and am more inclined to make interval literals (ILs) optional. But do you and Jürgen intend
>> - text2interval "should" be provided, and if it is, it *shall* accept
>> the stated syntax & semantics?
>
> I'm a bit confused here. I understand the "semantics," but what
> about the "syntax"? I'm thinking about 754: it specifies the
> behavior of floating point arithmetic, but does not
> spell out the details of programming language function
> calls (e.g. "in the hal-2001 language the floating point
> addition of adding x and y and storing it in z must be
> effected by the text string "z = IWillAddItRight(x,y)" ).
> Are we really dealing with syntax at all in 1788, or
> just semantics?
What a literal denotes must be about both, surely. The spec of hexadecimal-significand form in 754-2008 §5.12.3 has both (I think that's the only 754 analogy). Interval literals are similar but more elaborate.
John