Integer division, remainder and modulus

The most dangerous set of mutually exclusive features found in the four dialects supported by GNU Modula-2 are the INTEGER division, remainder and modulus arithmetic operators. It is important to note that the same source code can be compiled to give different runtime results depending upon these switches! The reference manual for the various dialects of Modula-2 are quite clear about this behaviour and sadly there are three distinct definitions.

The table below illustrates the problem when a negative operand is used.

                  Pim2/3          Pim4                ISO
               -----------    -----------    ----------------------
lval    rval   DIV     MOD    DIV     MOD    DIV    MOD    /    REM
 31      10      3       1      3       1      3      1     3     1
-31      10     -3      -1     -4       9     -4      9    -3    -1
 31     -10     -3       1     -3       1     Exception    -3     1
-31     -10      3      -1      4       9     Exception     3    -1

See also P24 of PIM2, P27 of PIM3, P29 of PIM4 and P201 of the ISO Standard. At present all dialect division, remainder and modulus are implemented as above, apart from the exception calling in the ISO dialect. Instead of exception handling the results are the same as the PIM4 dialect. This is a temporary implementation situation.