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> A later revision of IEEE 754 attempted to remedy this, but the formats it recommended were so inefficient that it has not found much acceptance.

The C and C++ standards committees have been drafting decimal support based on IEC 60559:2011 (previously IEEE 754-2008) since its creation.

Original C TR: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1312.pdf

Latest draft specification: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1781.pdf

Original C++ TR: http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2009/n284...

Update proposal for C++11: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2012/n340...

GCC, ICC, IBM C, and HP C have adopted the extension. Links to the respective software implementations can be found under "cost of implementation" in the C++11 proposal above, except GCC, which uses IBM's library. Its support is documented here: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Decimal-Float.html

Meanwhile, hardware support so far exists in POWER6 and 7 and SPARC64 X.

This may seem like slow adoption if you aren't accustomed to the glacial pace of standards processes. Especially in the context of a component as critical as floating point numerics. If there is any holdup it would be lack of demand for this format, which the article's proposal doesn't affect.




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