[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Formal Comment: NaN should be, considered a number, not a real

Arthur Smyles atsmyles at rcn.com
Thu Jun 21 10:38:45 EDT 2007


> If you treat a NaN as a number that is not complex, it will solve the
> > performance issues stated in formal comment 143. It will also address
> > formal comment 230, which will make reals conform to mathematical usage.
> > It will also conform with IEEE-754.

> Reality trumps theory here:

In the case of math, reality IS theory :)

> people who use inexact complex numbers expect to be able to handle
> numbers with real or imaginary parts or
> both that are NaN.

Anytime a complex number is created with a real or imaginary part as a
NaN, it should return NaN. So

nan.0+1i => nan.0
1+nan.0i => nan.0
nan.0+nan.0i => nan.0


Arthur



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