xref: /netbsd-src/external/lgpl3/mpfr/dist/BUGS (revision 4c3eb207d36f67d31994830c0a694161fc1ca39b)
1Copyright 1999, 2001-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2Contributed by the AriC and Caramba projects, INRIA.
3
4This file is part of the GNU MPFR Library.
5
6The GNU MPFR Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
7it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
8the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your
9option) any later version.
10
11The GNU MPFR Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
12WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
13or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public
14License for more details.
15
16You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
17along with the GNU MPFR Library; see the file COPYING.LESSER.  If not, see
18https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
1951 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
20
21##############################################################################
22
23Known bugs:
24
25* The overflow/underflow exceptions may be badly handled in some functions;
26  specially when the intermediary internal results have exponent which
27  exceeds the hardware limit (2^30 for a 32 bits CPU, and 2^62 for a 64 bits
28  CPU) or the exact result is close to an overflow/underflow threshold.
29
30* Under Linux/x86 with the traditional FPU, some functions do not work
31  if the FPU rounding precision has been changed to single (this is a
32  bad practice and should be useless, but one never knows what other
33  software will do).
34
35* Some functions do not use MPFR_SAVE_EXPO_* macros, thus do not behave
36  correctly in a reduced exponent range.
37
38* Function hypot gives incorrect result when on the one hand the difference
39  between parameters' exponents is near 2*MPFR_EMAX_MAX and on the other hand
40  the output precision or the precision of the parameter with greatest
41  absolute value is greater than 2*MPFR_EMAX_MAX-4.
42
43Potential bugs:
44
45* Possible incorrect results due to internal underflow, which can lead to
46  a huge loss of accuracy while the error analysis doesn't take that into
47  account. If the underflow occurs at the last function call (just before
48  the MPFR_CAN_ROUND), the result should be correct (or MPFR gets into an
49  infinite loop). TODO: check the code and the error analysis.
50
51* Possible bugs with huge precisions (> 2^30) and a 32-bit ABI, in particular
52  undetected integer overflows. TODO: use the MPFR_ADD_PREC macro.
53
54* Possible bugs if the chosen exponent range does not allow to represent
55  the range [1/16, 16].
56
57* Possible infinite loop in some functions for particular cases: when
58  the exact result is an exactly representable number or the middle of
59  consecutive two such numbers. However for non-algebraic functions, it is
60  believed that no such case exists, except the well-known cases like cos(0)=1,
61  exp(0)=1, and so on, and the x^y function when y is an integer or y=1/2^k.
62
63* The mpfr_set_ld function may be quite slow if the long double type has an
64  exponent of more than 15 bits.
65
66* mpfr_set_d may give wrong results on some non-IEEE architectures.
67
68* Error analysis for some functions may be incorrect (out-of-date due
69  to modifications in the code?).
70
71* Possible use of non-portable feature (pre-C99) of the integer division
72  with negative result.
73