On 2006-06-14, Nick Maclaren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >|>> Now, I should like to improve this, but there are two problems. The >|>> first is political, and is whether it would be acceptable in Python to >|>> restore the semantics that were standard up until about 1980 in the >|>> numerical programming area. I.e. one where anything that is numerically >|>> undefined or at a singularity which can deliver more than one value is >|>> an error state (e.g. raises an an exception or returns a NaN). >|> >|> That's fine as long as the behavior is selectable. I almost >|> always want a quiet NaN. > > That is one of the two modes that I regard as respectable. However, > because integer arithmetic doesn't have a NaN value (which could be > fixed, in Python), anything that returns an integer has to raise an > exception. On that matter, division by zero and several other currently > trapped numeric errors could be modified to return NaN for people like > you (if the option were selected, of course).
The division by zero trap is really annoying. In my world the right thing to do is to return Inf. >|> While you're at it, the pickle modules need to be fixed so they >|> support NaN and Inf. ;) > > Yup. On my list :-) -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! Were these parsnips at CORRECTLY MARINATED in visi.com TACO SAUCE? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list