The current approach tracks math maximum supported errors by explicitly
setting them per function and architecture. On newer implementations or
new compiler versions, the file is updated with newer values if it
shows higher results. The idea is to track the maximum known error, to
update the manual with the obtained values.
The constant libm-test-ulps shows little value, where it is usually a
mechanical change done by the maintainer, for past releases it is
usually ignored whether the ulp change resulted from a compiler
regression, and the math tests already have a maximum ulp error that
triggers a regression.
It was shown by a recent update after the new acosf [1] implementation
that is correctly rounded, where the libm-test-ulps was indeed from a
compiler issue.
This patch removes all arch-specific libm-test-ulps, adds system generic
libm-test-ulps where applicable, and changes its semantics. The generic
files now track specific implementation constraints, like if it is
expected to be correctly rounded, or if the system-specific has
different error expectations.
Now multiple libm-test-ulps can be defined, and system-specific
overrides generic implementation. This is for the case where
arch-specific implementation might show worse precision than generic
implementation, for instance, the cbrtf on i686.
Regressions are only reported if the implementation shows larger errors
than 9 ulps (13 for IBM long double) unless it is overridden by
libm-test-ulps and the maximum error is not printed at the end of tests.
The regen-ulps rule is also removed since it does not make sense to
update the libm-test-ulps automatically.
The manual error table is also removed, Paul Zimmermann and others have
been tracking libm precision with a more comprehensive analysis for some
releases; so link to his work instead.
[1] https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commit;h=9cc9f8e11e8fb8f54f1e84d9f024917634a78201
3e8814903c