On 16/06/2010 13:19, Lars Hellström wrote:
> Joseph Wright skrev:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Those of you who take an interest in the LaTeX3 SVN may have noticed
>> that I've just added the beginnings of a 'l3fp' module as part of
>> expl3. This is intended to provide a set of floating point functions
>> for LaTeX3.
> [snip]
>> In terms of input range, I've gone for -999999999.999999999 to
>> +999999999.999999999. This should be sufficient for a wide range of
>> purposes (for example, if you convert a dimen into a floating point
>> number in units pt then you are safe for any dimen TeX can handle).
>
> I was as confused by this as J.Fine, but it now seems clear that you've
> implemented a fixed point arithmetic package that possibly will become a
> floating point arithmetic package.

Apologies for my lack of precision. I've now updated the code to state 
explicitly "fixed-point" arithmetic. I've also made some experiments 
with true floating points. There are good reasons to support these (for 
example, look at pgfplots and its approach to handling experimental 
data). However, the extra complexity looks a bit steep to me, at least 
initially. For the moment I will concentrate on a full set of fixed 
point features, and then look again at floating point input when the 
exact requirements are clearer.
-- 
Joseph Wright