Noam Raphael added the comment: If I think about it some more, why not get rid of all the float platform-dependencies and define how +inf, -inf and nan behave?
I think that it means: * inf and -inf are legitimate floats just like any other float. Perhaps there should be a builtin Inf, or at least math.inf. * nan is an object of type float, which behaves like None, that is: "nan == nan" is true, but "nan < nan" and "nan < 3" will raise an exception. Mathematical operations which used to return nan will raise an exception (division by zero does this already, but "inf + -inf" will do that too, instead of returning nan.) Again, there should be a builtin NaN, or math.nan. The reason for having a special nan object is compatibility with IEEE floats - I want to be able to pass around IEEE floats easily even if they happen to be nan. This is basically what Tcl did, if I understand correctly - see item 6 in http://www.tcl.tk/cgi-bin/tct/tip/132.html . __________________________________ Tracker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://bugs.python.org/issue1580> __________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
