Dictionary De - En
De - Es
De - Pt| English Dictionary: underflow | by the DICT Development Group |
| 1 result for underflow | |
| From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]: | |
|
underflow underflow", after "{overflow}") A condition that can occur when the result of a {floating-point} operation would be smaller in magnitude (closer to zero, either positive or negative) than the smallest quantity representable. Underflow is actually (negative) {overflow} of the {exponent} of the {floating point} quantity. For example, an eight-bit {twos complement} exponent can represent multipliers of 10^-128 to 10^127. A result less than 10^-128 would cause underflow. Depending on the {processor}, the programming language and the {run-time system}, underflow may set a status bit, raise an {exception} or generate a {hardware} {interrupt} or some combination of these effects. Alternatively, it may just be ignored and zero substituted for the unrepresentable value, though this might lead to a later {divide by zero} error which cannot be so easily ignored. (1997-08-25) | |
