ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 N724 Minor alteration to representations of types Clive D.W. Feather Abstract ======== N691 defines the meaning of the sign bit as being either a negation flag or a large negative constant. At the time I was writing the original paper I was over-generous in the latter case. This proposal restricts implementations to the three cases of sign-and-magnitude, twos-complement, and ones-complement. Proposal ======== In 6.1.2.7.2 paragraph 2 (added in N691), change: If the sign bit is one, then the value shall be modified in one of the following ways: - the corresponding value with sign bit 0 is negated; - the sign bit has some value between -1 and -2**N inclusive. to: If the sign bit is one, then the value shall be modified in one of the following ways: - the corresponding value with sign bit 0 is negated; | - the sign bit has the value -2**N; | - the sign bit has the value 1-2**N.