README.txt revision 206921
1 2Package Overview for TestFloat Release 2a 3 4John R. Hauser 51998 December 16 6 7 8TestFloat is a program for testing that a floating-point implementation 9conforms to the IEC/IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic. 10TestFloat is distributed in the form of C source code. The TestFloat 11package actually provides two related programs: 12 13-- The `testfloat' program tests a system's floating-point for conformance 14 to the IEC/IEEE Standard. This program uses the SoftFloat software 15 floating-point implementation as a basis for comparison. 16 17-- The `testsoftfloat' program tests SoftFloat itself for conformance to 18 the IEC/IEEE Standard. These tests are performed by comparing against a 19 separate, slower software floating-point that is included in the TestFloat 20 package. 21 22TestFloat depends on SoftFloat, but SoftFloat is not included in the 23TestFloat package. SoftFloat can be obtained through the Web page `http:// 24HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~jhauser/arithmetic/SoftFloat.html'. 25 26TestFloat is documented in three text files: 27 28 testfloat.txt Documentation for using the TestFloat programs 29 (both `testfloat' and `testsoftfloat'). 30 testfloat-source.txt Documentation for porting and compiling TestFloat. 31 testfloat-history.txt History of major changes to TestFloat. 32 33The following file is also provided: 34 35 systemBugs.txt Information about processor bugs found using 36 TestFloat. 37 38Other files in the package comprise the source code for TestFloat. 39 40Please be aware that some work is involved in porting this software to other 41targets. It is not just a matter of getting `make' to complete without 42error messages. I would have written the code that way if I could, but 43there are fundamental differences between systems that I can't make go away. 44You should not attempt to compile the TestFloat sources without first 45reading `testfloat-source.txt'. 46 47At the time of this writing, the most up-to-date information about 48TestFloat and the latest release can be found at the Web page `http:// 49HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/~jhauser/arithmetic/TestFloat.html'. 50 51