J3/01-131 Date: 10 Feb. 2001 To: J3 From: William B. Clodius Subject: Ambiguity in the title of section 15 The current title of section 15, "Exceptions and IEEE Arithmetic," suggests to many readers that the section is concerned with a general exception handling mechanism. It is, of course, concerned only with arithmetic exceptions. In my view the report would benefit by making this clear. I also believe, for stylistic reasons, that any changes should be reflected in the content of the first paragraph of section 15. I have considered several alternative titles for section 15, i.e., Arithmetic Exceptions and IEEE Arithmetic Floating Point Exceptions and IEEE Arithmetic IEEE Arithmetic and Exceptions IEEE Arithmetic and Arithmetic Exceptions but only the first title strikes me as appropriate. The term floating point is not used in the current draft and if used would have to be defined. The last two versions suggest that the exception model is intended only for systems with IEEE arithmetic, while many features of the section are intended to be implementable on non-IEEE systems. Edits: Insert the word "Arithmetic" at the start of the title of section 15. In the first sentence of the first paragraph of section 15 insert the word "arithmetic" before the phrase "exceptions and IEEE arithmetic."