On 03/08/2016 00:23, Greg Ewing wrote:
David Mertz wrote:
It really doesn't make sense to me that a clamp() function would *limit to* a NaN.
Keep in mind that the NaNs involved have probably arisen from some other computation that went wrong, and that the purpose of the whole NaN system is to propagate an indication of that wrongness so that it's evident in the final result.
So here's how I see it:
clamp(NaN, y, z) is asking "Is an unknown number between y and z?" The answer to that is not known, so the result should be NaN.
clamp(x, y, NaN) is asking "Is x between y and an unknown number?" If x > y, the answer to that is not known, so the result should be NaN. +1 so far
If x < y, you might argue that the result should be y. But consider clamp(x, 2, 1). You're asking it to limit x to a value not less than 2 and not greater than 1. There's no such number, so arguably the result should be NaN. I think clamp(x,2,1) should raise ValueError. It's asking for something impossible.
If you accept that, then clamp(x, y, NaN) should be NaN in all cases, since we don't know that the upper bound isn't less than the lower bound. +0.8. Returning y when x<y might suit some applications better, but "resist the temptation to guess". Rob Cliffe
So in summary, I think it should be:
clamp(NaN, y, z) --> NaN clamp(x, NaN, z) --> NaN clamp(x, y, NaN) --> NaN clamp(x, y, z) --> NaN if z < y