(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.5296) [ukfortran] Did we intend to prohibit this?

[N.M. Maclaren]

On Jul 3 2014, Van Snyder wrote:

>As far as I can tell from looking at 7.1.12, the only function from
>IEEE_Arithmetic that's allowed in a constant expression is
>IEEE_Selected_Real_Kind.
>
>Did we intend to prohibit all the others?
>
>Is there a problem with admitting the inquiry functions, and admitting
>the others provided their arguments are constant expressions?

One issue that would have to be considered is what requirements we would
place on compile- and run-time options to control the modes.  IEEE 754
remains a very assembler-level specification, does not map well even
to C, and its arithmetic model is seriously incompatible with Fortran's.
This is probably resolvable, but isn't just a matter of relaxing the
restrictions.  I, for one, lack the enthusiasm to tackle this.


Regards,
Nick.