A proposed numerical accuracy control system

Abstract

A scheme is proposed for permitting a user of conventional procedural programming languages (initially, Standard FORTRAN) to test actual error propagation in numerical calculations. The process is to be fully mechanistic so that, with no human resequencing required or permitted, a "numerical procedure debugging" tool is made available. Other goals include a quantification of the order-of-precision decision for specified accuracy, provision of an observational tool for determining word length requirements, and an automatic facility for utilizing other kinds of arithmetic interpretively in executing existing programs and program segments. The experimental package consists, in effect, of a compiler from FORTRAN source language into an artificial machine language in which arithmetic operations produce, in addition to numerical results, a measure of the current accuracy of each result operand.