Editing Fixed-point arithmetic (section)

==Computer language support==
Explicit support for fixed-point numbers is provided by a few programming languages, notably [[PL/I]], [[COBOL]], [[Ada programming language|Ada]], [[JOVIAL]], and [[Coral 66]]. They provide fixed-point  [[data type]]s, with a binary or decimal scaling factor. The compiler automatically generates code to do the appropriate scaling conversions when doing operations on these data types, when reading or writing variables, or when converting the values to other data types such as floating-point.

Most of those languages were designed between 1955 and 1990.  More modern languages usually do not offer any fixed-point data types or support for scaling factor conversion. That is also the case for several older languages that are still very popular, like  [[FORTRAN]],  [[C (programming language)|C]] and [[C++]].  The wide availability of fast floating-point processors, with strictly standardized behavior, has greatly reduced the demand for binary fixed-point support.{{cn|date=October 2021}}  Similarly, the support for [[decimal floating point]] in some programming languages, like [[C Sharp language|C#]] and [[Python (programming language)|Python]], has removed most of the need for decimal fixed-point support. In the few situations that call for fixed-point operations, they can be implemented by the programmer, with explicit scaling conversion, in any programming language.

On the other hand, all relational [[database]]s and the [[SQL]] notation support fixed-point decimal arithmetic and storage of numbers. [[PostgreSQL]] has a special <samp>numeric</samp> type for exact storage of numbers with up to 1000 digits.<ref name="PostgreSQL"/>

Moreover, in 2008 the [[International Organization for Standardization]] (ISO) issued a proposal to extend the C programming language with fixed-point data types, for the benefit of programs running on embedded processors.<ref name="JTC1_2008"/> Also, the [[GNU Compiler Collection]] (GCC) has [[compiler#Back end|back-end]] support for fixed-point.<ref name="gccback"/><ref name="gccuse"/>