Re: Infinity (to the nearest integer)

Kevin Reid <kpreid-M/[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.lang.e.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On Oct 13, 2010, at 23:40, Bill Frantz wrote:

> On 10/8/10 at 6:58 AM, tal-v5nx5w6akNyLE8xUarVfuPLx9OUvmyODWmv/[email protected] (Thomas
> Leonard) wrote:
>
>> This is a bit surprising...
>>
>> ? Infinity.round()
>> # value: 9223372036854775807
>>
>> ? NaN.floor()
>> # value: 0
>
> Perhaps in both cases introducing the idea of an Integer NaN is
> the right answer. Division by zero should produce NaN. (I can
> hear arguments for +- infinity, but is the zero + or -?)
>
> But integer NaNs may be too weird.

Suppose we do want to produce NaN. Why do we need integer NaNs  
distinct from float NaNs?

(This is a relevant question in other places; I've pondered using NaN  
and Infinity in otherwise-integer APIs, in particular streams, e.g.  
Infinity = "the rest of the stream".)

-- 
Kevin Reid                                  <http://switchb.org/kpreid/>
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