[Python-Dev] Python on non IEEE-754 platforms: plea for information.

[Neal Norwitz]

On Feb 1, 2008 2:52 PM, Mark Dickinson <dickinsm at gmail.com> wrote:
>  The IBM format is particularly troublesome because
> it's base 16 instead of base 2 (so e.g. multiplying a float by 2 can lose
> bits), but it appears that recent IBM machines do both IBM format and IEEE
> format floating-point.  I assume that the S-390 buildbots are using the IEEE
> side---is this true?

I don't know and suspect the only way to figure it out would be to
write a test that would expose which is being used.  It's using gcc,
so we probably get whatever the compiler defaults to.  Sometimes we
have to specify flags for certain platforms.  For example -mieee on
the Alpha.

It's fine to check in something so that you can get an answer on a buildbot.

n