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[Caml-list] Catching exceptions into strings
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Date: | 2002-06-17 (16:10) |
From: | Ken Rose <kenarose@e...> |
Subject: | Re: [Caml-list] Catching exceptions into strings |
Xavier Leroy wrote: > > I tried this with java and was interested to find that integer > > division by zero is caught but floating point division by zero isn't. > > It is "caught" not as an exception, but by returning the appropriate > values defined for this very purpose in IEEE arithmetic: > 1.0 / 0.0 = +Inf -1.0 / 0.0 = -Inf 0.0 / 0.0 = NaN > This might not seem natural to you, but it's the result of years of > arguing among numerical experts, and is the standard towards which > both hardware and programming languages converge. I'm shooting from the hip here, having not even looked in the manual, but a good compromise might be some NaN-to-exception functions that are identity operations if the parameter is a regular number, but that raise exceptions if it's )for example) an infinity, or a NaN, or denormal, or perhaps others. - ken ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners