[Python-Dev] Why is nan != nan?

[Nick Coghlan]

Mark Dickinson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Jesus Cea wrote:
>>> But IEEE 754 was created by pretty clever guys and sure they had a
>>> reason for define things in the way they are. Probably we are missing
>>> something.
>> Yes, this is where their "implementable in a hardware circuit" focus
>> comes in. They were primarily thinking of a floating point
>> representation where the 32/64 bits are *it* - you can't have "multiple
>> NaNs" because you don't have the bits available to describe them.
> 
> I'm not so sure about this:  standard 64-bit binary IEEE 754 doubles
> allow for 2**53-2 different nans (2**52-2 signaling nans, 2**52 quiet
> nans):  anything with bit pattern (msb to lsb)
> 
> x1111111 1111xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
> 
> is an infinity or a nan, and there are only 2 infinities.

I stand corrected :)

It still seems to me that the problems mostly arise when we're trying to
get floats and Decimals to behave like Python *objects* (i.e. with
reflexive equality) rather than like IEEE defined numbers.

It's an extra element that isn't part of the problem the numeric
standards are trying to solve.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
---------------------------------------------------------------