Single-precision floating-point format: Difference between revisions

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=== Optimizations ===

The design of floating-point format allows various optimisations, resulting from the easy generation of a [[base-2 logarithm]] approximation from an integer view of the raw bit pattern. Integer arithmetic and bit-shifting can yield an approximation to [[reciprocal square root]] ([[fast inverse square root]]), commonly required in [[computer graphics]].

== Add. info and curiosities ==

The IEEE 754 standard allows two different views / decodings for the numbers, one described above with a fractional understanding of the significand and a bias of 127 for the exponent, the other understanding the significand as binary integer, 2^23 times larger, and in turn the bias for the significand 23 larger, 150, which produces smaller effective exponents and by that the same final result. The fractional view is common for binaryxxx datatypes, while the integral is for decimalxxx datatypes.

== See also ==