Front page | perl.perl6.language |
Postings from October 2002
Re: Indeterminate math
From:
Ken Williams
Date:
October 15, 2002 09:56
Subject:
Re: Indeterminate math
Message ID:
CA28E5EC-E05E-11D6-A7BE-003065F6D85A@mathforum.org
On Tuesday, October 15, 2002, at 07:05 AM, Michael G Schwern wrote:
> This came up at YAPC::Europe. Someone [1] wanted to know if 1/0 would
> produce a divide by zero error in Perl 6, or if it would return a value
> representing an indeterminate result (undef?) It would make more sense
> for
> Perl, upon being given a simple bit of impossible math, to return undef
> (like other functions do on failure) than to generate an error. The
> error
> seems a throwback to earlier days of hardwired calculators.
Well, if you're an exceptions guy like me, you'd *much* rather have it
produce an error than a zero, which I assume undef would still evaluate
to.
NaN is another option, following some standard or other.
> [2] Discussion of divide by zero and why it's not infinity [3]
> http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.divideby0.html
>
> [3] I was always taught it's infinity.
Positive or negative infinity? (it's a trap!)
-Ken