Bruno Haible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asks about my problem report of compiling the expression -LDBL_MIN * LDBL_MIN on Mac OS X PowerPC systems:
>> ... >> While Nelson Beebe's report says "Apple Mac OS X 10.x PowerPC", I >> could not reproduce any problem on MacOS X 10.3.9.) >> ... The problem definitely exists, and as I noted, I've seen it in my own code, and had to work around it. I have a later O/S release, and newer compilers: % sw_vers ProductName: Mac OS X ProductVersion: 10.4.11 BuildVersion: 8S165 % system_profiler Hardware: Hardware Overview: Machine Name: Power Mac G4 Machine Model: PowerMac3,6 CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3) Number Of CPUs: 2 CPU Speed: 1.42 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB L3 Cache (per CPU): 2 MB Memory: 2 GB Bus Speed: 167 MHz Boot ROM Version: 4.6.0f1 Serial Number: XXXXXXXXXXXX ... % uname -a Darwin XXXX.math.utah.edu 8.11.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10 18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc PowerMac3,6 Darwin % cat foo.c static long double one = 1.0L * 1.0L; static long double quarter = 0.5L * 0.5L; static long double third = 1.0L / 3.0L; #include <float.h> long double minus_zero = -LDBL_MIN * LDBL_MIN; % which cc gcc /usr/bin/cc /usr/local/bin/gcc % cc --version powerpc-apple-darwin8-gcc-4.0.1 (GCC) 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367) ... % cc -c foo.c foo.c:3: error: initializer element is not constant foo.c:5: error: initializer element is not constant % gcc --version gcc (GCC) 4.3.0 20070817 (experimental) ... % gcc -c foo.c foo.c:3: error: initializer element is not constant foo.c:5: error: initializer element is not constant ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------