Detection of whether a result of a floating point operation is safe. Characteristics of the result are examined to determine whether the result is safe or potentially unsafe, as defined by the user. An instruction is provided to facilitate detection of safe or potentially unsafe results.

A system, structure and method using radix-1000 (instead of radix-10) are implemented to represent and operate on decimal floating-point numbers. Instead of using a 10-bit declet to encode a DPD, the system, structure and method herein use a declet to encode a BCK (Binary Coded 1000 values), where the letter K is the abbreviation of the number 1000. A skewed representation of the fraction field is then used to avoid the loss of decimal digits in arithmetic operations when shifting and rounding the fraction are required.

Processing within a computing environment is facilitated. An operand of an instruction is obtained, which includes decimal floating point data encoded in a compressed format. An operation is performed on the operand absent decompressing a source value of a trailing significand of the decimal floating point data in the compressed format.

Detection of whether a result of a floating point operation is safe. Characteristics of the result are examined to determine whether the result is safe or potentially unsafe, as defined by the user. An instruction is provided to facilitate detection of safe or potentially unsafe results.

Processing within a computing environment is facilitated. An operand of an instruction is obtained, which includes decimal floating point data encoded in a compressed format. An operation is performed on the operand absent decompressing a source value of a trailing significand of the decimal floating point data in the compressed format.

Detection of whether a result of a floating point operation is safe. Characteristics of the result are examined to determine whether the result is safe or potentially unsafe, as defined by the user. An instruction is provided to facilitate detection of safe or potentially unsafe results.

Detection of whether a result of a floating point operation is safe. Characteristics of the result are examined to determine whether the result is safe or potentially unsafe, as defined by the user. An instruction is provided to facilitate detection of safe or potentially unsafe results.

A decimal floating point finite number in a decimal floating point format is composed from the number in a different format. A decimal floating point format includes fields to hold information relating to the sign, exponent and significand of the decimal floating point finite number. Other decimal floating point data, including infinities and NaNs (not a number), are also composed. Decimal floating point data are also decomposed from the decimal floating point format to a different format.

A decimal floating point finite number in a decimal floating point format is composed from the number in a different format. A decimal floating point format includes fields to hold information relating to the sign, exponent and significand of the decimal floating point finite number. Other decimal floating point data, including infinities and NaNs (not a number), are also composed. Decimal floating point data are also decomposed from the decimal floating point format to a different format.