double vs single precision

[Doug Gwyn <gwyn>]

> My suggestion is to provide ANSI C with the standard pragmas
> 	#pragma float		/* force single precision */
> 	#pragma double		/* force double precision */
> that the programmer could insert above the arithmetic statement
> to specify the precision to use. These pragmas would be ignored
> on compilers that choose not to give the programmer a choice.

I think the use of #pragma for this is a good idea (I would use
"use-single-precision" or "no-single-precision" pragmas), but
the content of a #pragma should not be in the standard; it is
intended as a portable way to invoke processing that is beyond
the scope of the standard.  Pragmas are implementation-specific.