IEEE floating point initialization

[John W. Eaton]

Are there any objections to installing the following change?

diff --git a/liboctave/lo-ieee.cc b/liboctave/lo-ieee.cc
--- a/liboctave/lo-ieee.cc
+++ b/liboctave/lo-ieee.cc
@@ -155,15 +155,22 @@
       break;
 
     case oct_mach_info::flt_fmt_cray:
+      (*current_liboctave_warning_handler)
+       ("lo_ieee_init: CRAY without IEEE floating point math: expect some 
problems...");
+      break;
+
     case oct_mach_info::flt_fmt_vax_d:
     case oct_mach_info::flt_fmt_vax_g:
+      (*current_liboctave_warning_handler)
+       ("lo_ieee_init: VAX without IEEE floating point math: expect some 
problems...");
       break;
 
     default:
       // If the format is unknown, then you will probably not have a
-      // useful system, but we will just issue a warning and go on...
-      (*current_liboctave_warning_handler)
-       ("lo_ieee_init: unrecognized floating point format!");
+      // useful system, so it is probably not worth continuing.
+      (*current_liboctave_error_handler)
+       ("lo_ieee_init: unrecognized floating point format!  Maybe DLAMCH is 
miscompiled, or you are using some strange system without IEEE floating point 
math?");
+      abort ();
     }
 }
 
Since Octave won't really work properly on systems that don't have
IEEE floating point arithmetic, maybe we should just fail even on the
known systems?  I mean, I don't think anyone is using Octave on a VAX
without IEEE math.  Or on any old CRAY hardware, though  I was
semi-successful in getting Octave to run on one once.

jwe