Commit 55ecda4f authored by Robert Griesemer's avatar Robert Griesemer

spec: clarify numeric conversions where IEEE-754 produces -0.0

The spec defines precise numeric constants which do not overflow.
Consequently, +/-Inf and NaN values were excluded. The case was not
clear for -0.0 but they are mostly of interest to determine the sign
of infinities which don't exist.

That said, the conversion rules explicitly say that T(x) (for a numeric
x and floating-point type T) is the value after rounding per IEEE-754.
The result is constant if x is constant. Rounding per IEEE-754 can
produce a -0.0 which we cannot represent as a constant.

Thus, the spec is inconsistent. Attempt to fix the inconsistency by
adjusting the rounding rule rather than letting -0.0 into the language.

For more details, see the issue below.

Open to discussion.

Fixes #12576.

Change-Id: Ibe3c676372ab16d9229f1f9daaf316f761e074ee
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/14727Reviewed-by: 's avatarRob Pike <r@golang.org>
Reviewed-by: 's avatarIan Lance Taylor <iant@golang.org>
Reviewed-by: 's avatarRuss Cox <rsc@golang.org>
parent 27838f39
<!--{
"Title": "The Go Programming Language Specification",
"Subtitle": "Version of September 24, 2015",
"Subtitle": "Version of October 20, 2015",
"Path": "/ref/spec"
}-->
......@@ -558,7 +558,9 @@ and are discussed in that section.
</p>
<p>
Numeric constants represent values of arbitrary precision and do not overflow.
Numeric constants represent exact values of arbitrary precision and do not overflow.
Consequently, there are no constants denoting the IEEE-754 negative zero, infinity,
and not-a-number values.
</p>
<p>
......@@ -593,16 +595,6 @@ respectively, depending on whether it is a boolean, rune, integer, floating-poin
complex, or string constant.
</p>
<p>
There are no constants denoting the IEEE-754 infinity and not-a-number values,
but the <a href="/pkg/math/"><code>math</code> package</a>'s
<a href="/pkg/math/#Inf">Inf</a>,
<a href="/pkg/math/#NaN">NaN</a>,
<a href="/pkg/math/#IsInf">IsInf</a>, and
<a href="/pkg/math/#IsNaN">IsNaN</a>
functions return and test for those values at run time.
</p>
<p>
Implementation restriction: Although numeric constants have arbitrary
precision in the language, a compiler may implement them using an
......@@ -3795,7 +3787,8 @@ type <code>T</code> in any of these cases:
<code>T</code> is a floating-point type,
and <code>x</code> is representable by a value
of type <code>T</code> after rounding using
IEEE 754 round-to-even rules.
IEEE 754 round-to-even rules, but with an IEEE <code>-0.0</code>
further rounded to an unsigned <code>0.0</code>.
The constant <code>T(x)</code> is the rounded value.
</li>
<li>
......@@ -3815,6 +3808,7 @@ uint(iota) // iota value of type uint
float32(2.718281828) // 2.718281828 of type float32
complex128(1) // 1.0 + 0.0i of type complex128
float32(0.49999999) // 0.5 of type float32
float64(-1e-1000) // 0.0 of type float64
string('x') // "x" of type string
string(0x266c) // "♬" of type string
MyString("foo" + "bar") // "foobar" of type MyString
......
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