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Confusion about the word "canonical" for NaNs #1613

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sunfishcode opened this issue Feb 22, 2023 · 1 comment · Fixed by #1614
Closed

Confusion about the word "canonical" for NaNs #1613

sunfishcode opened this issue Feb 22, 2023 · 1 comment · Fixed by #1614

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@sunfishcode
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The Wasm spec uses the word "canonical" to describe NaNs in a particular form. I recently spoke with someone who was confused because IEEE 754 also has a concept of a "canonical" representation for a NaN, and it's not the same as the Wasm spec's.

Please consider adding a note to the spec mentioning that IEEE 754's "canonical" and Wasm's "canonical" are different things.
@rossberg rossberg mentioned this issue Feb 22, 2023
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@rossberg
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If I read IEEE correctly, then it defines canonical NaN only for decimal formats. Hope #1614 makes sense. @sunfishcode, PTAL.

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[spec] Clarifying note about canonical NaNs WebAssembly/spec
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@rossberg @sunfishcode