FLOATER 1.0

If you want to write a single precision floating point number into memory,
the best way is to use the normal move instruction:

        move.l  #$4048F5C3,(a0)

Because it's not much fun to convert each real number into the floating point
"format" using an external program (or in your head?), Floater converts them
for you automagically. With it you would write the previous move like this:

        move.l  #f3.14,(a0)

Floater converts the source only if there's a "; FL" (or "; fl") statement
in the very beginning of the file (otherwise it performs only a simple copy).
Useful for projects with many non-FPU sources. With BIG files you might want
to bypass the useless copy, but with smaller (1000 lines?) sources it is nice
to be kept for transparency. My 030/40 & 882 converted a 306k file with 10800
Floater expressions in 12 seconds.

Floater requires AmigaOS 3.0+ and (naturally) an FPU. Memory usage depends on
the source file size.


COMMANDLINE USAGE

Floater INFILE OUTFILE FORCE

INFILE  - 68k assembler source file with Floater expressions (required)
OUTFILE - 68k assembler source file ready to assemble (required)
FORCE   - Force conversion (optional)

Example: floater ms_windows.s ms_windows_temp.s
         floater ms_windows.s t:ms_windows.s force


USAGE IN CODE

-- CUT --
; NF
        move.l  #f0.1234,label
        move.l  #f-43.21,-(sp)
        rts

-- CUT --


USAGE IN SCRIPTS

Floater becomes transparent when using makefile or other script to assemble.
Here's an example of a smakefile using Floater:

-- CUT --

OBJS =  main.o example.o

.s.o:
        floater $*.s t:$*.s
        genam from t:$*.s to $*.o
        delete t:$*.s quiet

example: $(OBJS)
        phxlnk from $(OBJS) to "example" smalldata smallcode noshortrelocs

-- CUT --


NOTES

Floater is only 768 bytes long and can be made resident.

If you need to convert only a normal number, you'd better leave the commonly
used ".0" away, because real number conversion is a bit slower:

        move.l  #f1.0,4.w  ->  move.l  #f1,4.w

Don't use spaces in the filenames. (Who would?)

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                  557     768  72.5% -lh5- 6995 Jul 24  1998 Floater
[generic]                 1127    2233  50.5% -lh5- de1d Jul 24  1998 Floater.readme
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         2 files    1684    3001  56.1%            Jul 29  1998