HP-UX Floating-Point Guide

70 Chapter 3
Factors that Affect the Results of Floating-Point Computations
When a floating-point application executes, the results it yields may be
different from those of previous executions, or the results may be
inaccurate. A great many factors can contribute to such differences or
inaccuracies. This chapter describes these factors.
We’ve divided the factors that can affect application results into the
following general categories:
• Basic operations
• Mathematical library functions
• Exception conditions and library errors
• Other system-related factors, which usually affect the three
preceding factors
• Floating-point coding practices that lead to inaccurate results