In article <009b4bab$0$26925$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>, Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> wrote: > When it comes to integers, I'm not aware of any mathematical or > programming system which treats -0 and +0 as distinct entities, even if > they have different internal representations.
A documented feature of most FORTRAN run-time libraries on the Control Data 6600/70/170 family (a one's-complement architecture cited earlier by Tim Roberts) was to convert a blank numeric input field (i.e. consisting of all space characters) to minus zero. Many programmers took advantage of that, using a test for -0 as an easy, though not 100% foolproof, test for a missing numeric value. -- Ned Deily, n...@acm.org -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
