Re: Divide by Zero

> On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:04:56 +0100, Frans Bouma <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >>> 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.
> >
> > Though how would you store 'e' or 'pi' ? You have just 4 or 8 bytes.
>
> I think you read my response out of context. You are positing that the
> reason for not throwing an exception when dividing a floating-point number
> by zero is that floating-point numbers are always approximations. That's
> with which I'm disagreeing, not your understand of floating-point arithmetic
> (which obviously by far surpasses mine). The IEEE floating-point rules
> dictate the CLR behavior. I just wanted to point out that not all
> singles/doubles in the CLR are approximations.

        Agreed, my wordings were too strong.

> Pi should be stored as a recursive lambda expression, of course. ;]

        Now that's an idea to apply bleeding edge technology! ;)

                FB

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