Returns the float value corresponding to a given
bit representation.
The argument is considered to be a representation of a
floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point
"single format" bit layout.
If the argument is 0x7f800000, the result is positive
infinity.
If the argument is 0xff800000, the result is negative
infinity.
If the argument is any value in the range
0x7f800001 through 0x7fffffff or in
the range 0xff800001 through
0xffffffff, the result is a NaN. No IEEE 754
floating-point operation provided by Java can distinguish
between two NaN values of the same type with different bit
patterns. Distinct values of NaN are only distinguishable by
use of the Float.floatToRawIntBits method.
In all other cases, let s, e, and m be three values that can be computed from the argument:
int s = ((bits >> 31) == 0) ? 1 : -1;
int e = ((bits >> 23) & 0xff);
int m = (e == 0) ?
(bits & 0x7fffff) << 1 :
(bits & 0x7fffff) | 0x800000;
Then the floating-point result equals the value of the mathematical
expression s·m·2e-150.
Note that this method may not be able to return a
float NaN with exactly same bit pattern as the
int argument. IEEE 754 distinguishes between two
kinds of NaNs, quiet NaNs and signaling NaNs. The
differences between the two kinds of NaN are generally not
visible in Java. Arithmetic operations on signaling NaNs turn
them into quiet NaNs with a different, but often similar, bit
pattern. However, on some processors merely copying a
signaling NaN also performs that conversion. In particular,
copying a signaling NaN to return it to the calling method may
perform this conversion. So intBitsToFloat may
not be able to return a float with a signaling NaN
bit pattern. Consequently, for some int values,
floatToRawIntBits(intBitsToFloat(start)) may
not equal start. Moreover, which
particular bit patterns represent signaling NaNs is platform
dependent; although all NaN bit patterns, quiet or signaling,
must be in the NaN range identified above.
bits | an integer. |
float floating-point value with the same bit
pattern.
Diagram: Number