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Fast functions which give the sign of a 32 bit floating point number by checking the sign bit. There are two versions, one which gives the value as a float, and the other gives an int.

The _nozero versions are faster, but they give incorrect 1 or -1 for zero (depending on the sign bit set in the number). The int version should be faster than the Tobybear one in the archive, since this one doesn't have an addition, just bit operations.

/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   fast sign, returns float
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

// returns 1.0f for positive floats, -1.0f for negative floats
// for zero it does not work (may gives 1.0f or -1.0f), but it's faster 
inline float fast_sign_nozero(float f) {
    float r = 1.0f;
    (int&)r |= ((int&)f & 0x80000000); // mask sign bit in f, set it in r if necessary
    return r;
}

// returns 1.0f for positive floats, -1.0f for negative floats, 0.0f for zero
inline float fast_sign(float f) {
    if (((int&)f & 0x7FFFFFFF)==0) return 0.f; // test exponent & mantissa bits: is input zero?
    else {
        float r = 1.0f;
        (int&)r |= ((int&)f & 0x80000000); // mask sign bit in f, set it in r if necessary
        return r;
    }
}

/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   fast sign, returns int
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

// returns 1 for positive floats, -1 for negative floats
// for 0.0f input it does not work (may give 1 or -1), but it's faster 
inline int fast_sign_int_nozero(float f) {
      return (signed((int&)f & 0x80000000) >> 31 ) | 1;
}

// returns 1 for positive floats, -1 for negative floats, 0 for 0.0f
inline int fast_sign_int(float f) {
    if (((int&)f & 0x7FFFFFFF)==0) return 0; // test exponent & mantissa bits: is input zero?
    return (signed((int&)f & 0x80000000) >> 31 ) | 1;
}