init(sign:exponent:significand:)

Declaration

init(sign: FloatingPointSign, exponent: Int, significand: Float16)

Parameters

• sign:

  The sign to use for the new value.

• exponent:

  The new value’s exponent.

• significand:

  The new value’s significand.

Discussion

The following example uses this initializer to create a new Double instance. Double is a binary floating-point type that has a radix of 2.

let x = Double(sign: .plus, exponent: -2, significand: 1.5)
// x == 0.375

This initializer is equivalent to the following calculation, where ** is exponentiation, computed as if by a single, correctly rounded, floating-point operation:

let sign: FloatingPointSign = .plus
let exponent = -2
let significand = 1.5
let y = (sign == .minus ? -1 : 1) * significand * Double.radix ** exponent
// y == 0.375

As with any basic operation, if this value is outside the representable range of the type, overflow or underflow occurs, and zero, a subnormal value, or infinity may result. In addition, there are two other edge cases:

• If the value you pass to significand is zero or infinite, the result is zero or infinite, regardless of the value of exponent.

• If the value you pass to significand is NaN, the result is NaN.

For any floating-point value x of type F, the result of the following is equal to x, with the distinction that the result is canonicalized if x is in a noncanonical encoding:

let x0 = F(sign: x.sign, exponent: x.exponent, significand: x.significand)

This initializer implements the scaleB operation defined by the IEEE 754 specification.