MIPS-NaN-Encodings.html 5.9 KB

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  57. <a name="MIPS-NaN-Encodings"></a>
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  59. <p>
  60. Next: <a href="MIPS-Option-Stack.html#MIPS-Option-Stack" accesskey="n" rel="next">MIPS Option Stack</a>, Previous: <a href="MIPS-FP-ABIs.html#MIPS-FP-ABIs" accesskey="p" rel="prev">MIPS FP ABIs</a>, Up: <a href="MIPS_002dDependent.html#MIPS_002dDependent" accesskey="u" rel="up">MIPS-Dependent</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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  63. <a name="Directives-to-record-which-NaN-encoding-is-being-used"></a>
  64. <h4 class="subsection">9.27.10 Directives to record which NaN encoding is being used</h4>
  65. <a name="index-MIPS-IEEE-754-NaN-data-encoding-selection"></a>
  66. <a name="index-_002enan-directive_002c-MIPS"></a>
  67. <p>The IEEE 754 floating-point standard defines two types of not-a-number
  68. (NaN) data: &ldquo;signalling&rdquo; NaNs and &ldquo;quiet&rdquo; NaNs. The original version
  69. of the standard did not specify how these two types should be
  70. distinguished. Most implementations followed the i387 model, in which
  71. the first bit of the significand is set for quiet NaNs and clear for
  72. signalling NaNs. However, the original MIPS implementation assigned the
  73. opposite meaning to the bit, so that it was set for signalling NaNs and
  74. clear for quiet NaNs.
  75. </p>
  76. <p>The 2008 revision of the standard formally suggested the i387 choice
  77. and as from Sep 2012 the current release of the MIPS architecture
  78. therefore optionally supports that form. Code that uses one NaN encoding
  79. would usually be incompatible with code that uses the other NaN encoding,
  80. so MIPS ELF objects have a flag (<code>EF_MIPS_NAN2008</code>) to record which
  81. encoding is being used.
  82. </p>
  83. <p>Assembly files can use the <code>.nan</code> directive to select between the
  84. two encodings. &lsquo;<samp>.nan 2008</samp>&rsquo; says that the assembly file uses the
  85. IEEE 754-2008 encoding while &lsquo;<samp>.nan legacy</samp>&rsquo; says that the file uses
  86. the original MIPS encoding. If several <code>.nan</code> directives are given,
  87. the final setting is the one that is used.
  88. </p>
  89. <p>The command-line options <samp>-mnan=legacy</samp> and <samp>-mnan=2008</samp>
  90. can be used instead of &lsquo;<samp>.nan legacy</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>.nan 2008</samp>&rsquo;
  91. respectively. However, any <code>.nan</code> directive overrides the
  92. command-line setting.
  93. </p>
  94. <p>&lsquo;<samp>.nan legacy</samp>&rsquo; is the default if no <code>.nan</code> directive or
  95. <samp>-mnan</samp> option is given.
  96. </p>
  97. <p>Note that <small>GNU</small> <code>as</code> does not produce NaNs itself and
  98. therefore these directives do not affect code generation. They simply
  99. control the setting of the <code>EF_MIPS_NAN2008</code> flag.
  100. </p>
  101. <p>Traditional MIPS assemblers do not support these directives.
  102. </p>
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