On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 10:15, Mikael Brockman wrote:
> Markus <markus / reality.com> writes:
> 
> > On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 09:22, Mikael Brockman wrote:
> > > Markus <markus / reality.com> writes:
> > > 
> > > >      Yes, but his point is that "NaN" _is_ the string representation of
> > > > valid floating point value, defined and handled by the system, with
> > > > standardized semantics, etc.   
> > > >     "NaN".to_f should return NaN.  How else are you going to reliably
> > > > get NaN if you need it?
> > > 
> > > 0.0/0.0? :-)
> > 
> >      I almost went off on an IEEE spiel until I saw the ":-)"
> 
> Actually, I'm as ignorant as you first assumed.  Feel free to spiel if
> you want.  :-)

    Short form: there are several NaN's, and "NaN like values" (e.g. +/-
infinity) and IIRC the form you gave could arguably return almost any of
them (except maybe -0.0).  

-- Markus

http://www.freesoft.org/CIE/RFC/1832/32.htm