On 2018-09-30 10:15, David Mertz wrote:
For similar reasons, I'd like an iInf too, FWIW. It's good for an overflow value, although it's hard to get there in Python ints (would 'NaNAwareInt(1)/0' be an exception or iInf?). Bonus points for anyone who knows the actual maximum size of Python ints :-).
However, the main use I'd have for iInf is simply as a starting value in a minimization loop. E.g.
minimum = NaNAwareInt('inf') for i in the_data: minimum = min(i, minimum)
other_stuff(i, minimum, a, b, c)
I've written that code a fair number of times; usually I just pick a placeholder value that is "absurdly large relative to my domain", but a clean infinity would be slightly better. E.g. 'minimum = 10**100'.
If we conceptualize iNan as "not an integer", then we can define operators in two manners: Let |●| be any operator: 1) "conservative" - operators that define a|● |b==iNaN if either a or b is iNan 2) "decisive" - operators that never return iNan With a decisive min(a, b), you can write the code you want without needing iINF