In addition, if the rounded result would underflow, i.e. if the exponent would exceed the lowest representable integer value, the effective result may be either zero (possibly signed if the representation can maintain a distinction of signs for zeroes), or the smallest representable positive finite number (or the highest representable negative finite number if "x" is negative), possibly a "denormal" positive or negative number (if the mantissa is storing all its significant digits, in which case the most significant digit may still be stored in a lower position by setting the highest stored digits to zero, and this stored mantissa does not drop the most significant digit, something that is possible when base "b"=2 because the most significant digit is always 1 in that base), depending on the direction of rounding. The result of an underflow for the usual case of "round to even" is always the appropriate zero.