4 ms·
x86 has had BCD support since before I was born. And, as far as I know, when compiling for a platform that's missing a fundamental datatype, it's usually the c
by sonthonax 6y ago
x86 has had BCD support since before I was born. And, as far as I know, when compiling for a platform that's missing a fundamental datatype, it's usually the compiler that adds the missing type as a runtime.
See for example this, a software float for crappy ARM processors.
https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/16e2427f50c208dfe07d07f18009969502c25dc8/libgcc/config/arm/ieee754-sf.S https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc/blob/16e2427f50c208dfe07d0...
I was more so wondering, if a COBOL compiler (given how low level the language is) makes a lot of assumptions about the platform. Even assumptions about potential quirks.
- rbanffy 6y agoI’m no COBOL expert, but the way a COBOL program sees the machine is very different from what a C program does. I never saw anything resembling assumptions about native data types or anything similarly low level. And I never imagined an x86 could deal with decimal floats.