[R] gcc 2.96 {was 'number point under-flow'}

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "ArneM" ==   <Arne.Muller at aventis.com>
>>>>>     on Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:53:11 +0100 writes:

    ArneM> Hi, yes, I did compile it with gcc 2.96 ... . Do
    ArneM> you've an estimate on how "bad" this error is,
    ArneM> e.g. how much it effects the calculations in R?

In my memory, the effects are bad enough to very quickly drop
such a version of R and get one which is correctly compiled.

Even if only 1 in 10000 computations go wrong; you will hardly
notice and you have chance of knowing which of your final
results will be inaccurate by how much.

This has been on this mailing list and in many installation
instructions. "gcc 2.96" has never been an official release of
gcc and the fact that Redhat had bundled it with one of their
distributions was probably the biggest mistake they've ever
made.

Google for "gcc 2.96" and you will find
       http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html
and much more variations on this theme.

Current is gcc 3.3.2, released last October, but gcc 3.2.x might
be acceptable too (but 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 are broken on Solaris).