(j3.2006) BEQ, BNE?

[Malcolm Cohen]

Van Snyder wrote:
>We did BLT, BLE, etc., but why not BEQ and BNE?

Good question.

>One might be tempted to use == and /=, but these are required to fail
>for +/- zero on ones-complement and sign-magnitude machines because
>Fortran doesn't distinguish +0 from -0 for integers.

It could be worse than that - I seem to recall that some such hardware rather 
tended to force negative zero to positive zero at the drop of a hat... which 
might well result in DIGITS(0) being 1 less than the actual number of bits 
stored, so as to satisfy all the requirements of the bit model.

>Should we add BEQ and BNE, or suggest that users write something like

For now users have little choice, they have to write something...

Bob Corbett wrote:
>Any optimizing compiler worth being called an optimizing compiler can recognize
>idioms and produce good code for them.

Well yes, but they have to become idioms first... Van's suggestion looks more 
obvious as to the intent!

Cheers,
-- 
................................Malcolm Cohen, Nihon NAG, Tokyo.