Re: Divide by Zero

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:35:15 +0100, Frans Bouma <[email protected]> wrote:

>> In a little more than a nutshell, why does the CLR only throw a divide by
>> zero exception for integers?
>
> I think because, if I recall correctly, a floating point number is
> always an approximation, so you can have a floating point value
> which seems 0 but actually isn't.

I disagree. PositiveInfinity, for example, is not an approximation. It's
really infinity.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.double.positiveinfinity.aspx

I found this concisely helpful:
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/754/faq.html#exceptions

Couldn't it be seen as that decimal/integer have been simplified in the CLR
(for programmers), whereas single/double retain their complexity (for
mathematicians)?

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