1206917Smarius 2206917SmariusPackage Overview for TestFloat Release 2a 3206917Smarius 4206917SmariusJohn R. Hauser 5206917Smarius1998 December 16 6206917Smarius 7206917Smarius 8206917SmariusTestFloat is a program for testing that a floating-point implementation 9206917Smariusconforms to the IEC/IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic. 10206917SmariusTestFloat is distributed in the form of C source code. The TestFloat 11206917Smariuspackage actually provides two related programs: 12206917Smarius 13206917Smarius-- The `testfloat' program tests a system's floating-point for conformance 14206917Smarius to the IEC/IEEE Standard. This program uses the SoftFloat software 15206917Smarius floating-point implementation as a basis for comparison. 16206917Smarius 17206917Smarius-- The `testsoftfloat' program tests SoftFloat itself for conformance to 18206917Smarius the IEC/IEEE Standard. These tests are performed by comparing against a 19206917Smarius separate, slower software floating-point that is included in the TestFloat 20206917Smarius package. 21206917Smarius 22206917SmariusTestFloat depends on SoftFloat, but SoftFloat is not included in the 23206917SmariusTestFloat package. SoftFloat can be obtained through the Web page `http:// 24206917SmariusHTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~jhauser/arithmetic/SoftFloat.html'. 25206917Smarius 26206917SmariusTestFloat is documented in three text files: 27206917Smarius 28206917Smarius testfloat.txt Documentation for using the TestFloat programs 29206917Smarius (both `testfloat' and `testsoftfloat'). 30206917Smarius testfloat-source.txt Documentation for porting and compiling TestFloat. 31206917Smarius testfloat-history.txt History of major changes to TestFloat. 32206917Smarius 33206917SmariusThe following file is also provided: 34206917Smarius 35206917Smarius systemBugs.txt Information about processor bugs found using 36206917Smarius TestFloat. 37206917Smarius 38206917SmariusOther files in the package comprise the source code for TestFloat. 39206917Smarius 40206917SmariusPlease be aware that some work is involved in porting this software to other 41206917Smariustargets. It is not just a matter of getting `make' to complete without 42206917Smariuserror messages. I would have written the code that way if I could, but 43206917Smariusthere are fundamental differences between systems that I can't make go away. 44206917SmariusYou should not attempt to compile the TestFloat sources without first 45206917Smariusreading `testfloat-source.txt'. 46206917Smarius 47206917SmariusAt the time of this writing, the most up-to-date information about 48206917SmariusTestFloat and the latest release can be found at the Web page `http:// 49206917SmariusHTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~jhauser/arithmetic/TestFloat.html'. 50206917Smarius 51