I would still stick with float32_t, float64_t, etc. But I could easily be swayed to another naming convention. Can anyone come up with any with convincing reason why a certain naming convention should be selected, or why not?
The numbers in such typedefs are, conventionally, sizes, or at least thought to be so. Interpreting them as significand bits for floating point types is surprising. Sizes are only useful for floating point when the representation is well defined.
John, do you have any kind of strong tendency? My personal favorites are:
1) float32_t, float64_t, etc...
+1 for types with well-defined representation.
2) float_single_t, float_double_t, float_quad_t, etc... 3) float24_t, float53_t, etc...
Neither of those is particularly helpful for the purpose. For 2, is the number of significand bits prescribed universally for each?
Yes they're IEEE standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_floating_point#Basic_formats But I see that brings up a new set of names: binary32_float, binary64_float, binary128_float or variations thereof. John.