Dear GPC-ers,
it seems that the complex arithmetic under GPC is not well implemented:
(i) there is only one complex type, the one whose real and imaginary part are double precision reals. For numerical applications complex numbers in single and extended precision are needed as well (in fact, just the availability of these three real precisions is what makes gnu-pascal attractive in this context).
(ii) the complex arithmetic of GPC lacks the elementary accuracy; see the following program
program complmult; var a : complex; b : double; begin b := 1e+160; a := cmplx(b,0); writeln('abs(b) = ',abs(b)); writeln('abs(a) = ',abs(a)); end.
Upon execution the results are
abs(b) = 1.000000000000000e+160 abs(a) = Inf
which is below even elementary standards. GNU g77 has none of the mentioned shortcomings, cannot one repair this?
Sincerely, K. Veselic.