significance of double test?

[Peter Naulls <peter at erble dot freeserve dot co dot uk>]

This is the first test from new_Double:

      // Some broken implementations convert "7.79625120912E289" to
      // the value 7.796251209119999E289.
      harness.check (new Double("7.79625120912E289").toString (),
        "7.79625120912E289");

Can someone tell me the significance of this test?  i.e., what's
the precise behaviour that's likely to result in the wrong value?

The reason I ask is that my JVM exhibits the undesirable value, and
I'm wondering what can be done to fix it.

Additionally, since my JVM is being developed on a non-unix platform,
and while I've found the Mauve suite itself phenomenally useful, the
scripts which are used to run the test aren't useable at all.  To
overcome this, I've written a "FullTestHarness" class, which parses
a list of test cases, keeps a running % count, and also can discount
tests (due to library faults, not JVM faults, etc).  If anyone
would like to see this, let me know.

Peter


-- 
+---------------------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Peter Naulls - pnaulls@usa.net              |                             |
| http://free.prohosting.com/~chocky/         | Java and JVM Consultant     |
| Java for RISC OS and ARM - java-arm@usa.net | Technical Author            |
| http://free.prohosting.com/~chocky/java/    | Program performance analyst |
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