Re: [BUG] PPC math-emu multiply problem

From: Kumar Gala
Date: Thu Jul 29 2004 - 09:13:10 EST



On Jul 29, 2004, at 8:14 AM, Greg Weeks wrote:

I'm seeing what appears to be a bug in the ppc kernel trap math emulator. An extreme case for multiplies isn't working the way gcc soft-float or hardware floating point is. The value in mindble is the smallest that can be represented in a double. When we try to divide it by two we should see an underflow and a return value of 0. We see this when using soft-float in gcc, or when there is HW floating point support, but it fails when the kernel trap emulator is used.

If anyone can verify this on a PPC other than an 8560 without hardware floating point I'd appreciate it. I did all of these tests with a 2.6.X based kernels. The x86 was 2.6.6 vanilla, 8560 is 2.6.6 with lots of stuff added and support for 8560. The 8260 was 2.6.0 with changes. I bumped into this with the LSB ldexp test. A simple multiply shows the problem though.

Greg Weeks

mulbug.c file
------------------------------------------
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <errno.h>

int main()
{
double x, rtval;
double mindble = 4.9406564584124654418e-324;

x = mindble;

printf("x = %.20g\n", x);

errno = 0;
rtval = ldexp(x, -1);

printf("using ldexp(x, -1) ERRNO = %d - %s, %.20g\n",
errno, strerror(errno), rtval);

printf("using (x * .5) %.20g\n", (x * .5));

exit(0);
}
-----------------------------------------

compile with:
gcc mulbug.c -lm -o mulbug


on an 8260 ppc with HW float.

x = 4.9406564584124654418e-324
using ldexp(x, -1) ERRNO = 34 - Numerical result out of range, 0
using (x * .5) 0

on an x86 with HW float.

x = 4.9406564584124654418e-324
using ldexp(x, -1) ERRNO = 34 - Numerical result out of range, 0
using (x * .5) 0

on an 8560 ppc with kernel trap float emulator.

x = 4.9406564584124654418e-324
using ldexp(x, -1) ERRNO = 0 - Success, 4.9406564584124654418e-324
using (x * .5) 4.9406564584124654418e-324

I get the same results on an 8560, with 2.6.8-rc2. I do not think this is an issue with 8560, but the kernel math emulation's precision. It is most likely the case that the gcc soft-float code is 'more correct'. What version of gcc were you using? It might be possible to replace the kernel fp emulation with gcc's (never looked at how gcc does it).

on an 8260 with soft-float in the gcc

x = 4.9406564584124654418e-324
using ldexp(x, -1) ERRNO = 34 - Numerical result out of range, 0
using (x * .5) 0


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