NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/lang/cplus/17842

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-11 | 1.9 KB

Xref: sparky comp.lang.c++:17842 comp.lang.c:18234 comp.programming:3311
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!deccrl!news.crl.dec.com!dbased.nuo.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!sousa.tay.dec.com!talent.ljo.dec.com!gibian
From: [e-mail] (Marc S. Gibian)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.programming
Subject: Re: How to make 3/0=INFINITY?
Keywords: INFINITY, ADT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Dec 92 22:41:44 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Followup-To: comp.lang.c++
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 29


Many moons ago, when I was a math wiz, I did indeed spend a section of
a mathematics class on theory of infinity.  At the time it was fun, looking
back it reminds me a lot of the current work in area of chaos theory.

But, this is comp.programming, so why not answer the initial question:

"How can I program so that 3 divided by 0 results in infinity?"

The hardware types have pointed to the IEEE standard for floating point
computations.  Thats nice, but once again this is comp.programming, so
here's a software solution:

Use a language supporting operator overloading and data hidding, c++ and
ADA come to mind first, and define your own data type ... how about
infinite.  The data structure would contain:

   real_value - a floating point number when values are not infinite

   infinite_value - an enumeration of values... based on my math
                    experience, it would be:
                     (negative-infinity, real, positive-infinity)

The function definitions are left as an exercise (as I have to beat the
blizzard home ;-)
--
Marc S. Gibian            email: [e-mail]
Principal Software Engineer    phone: [phone]
Digital Equipment Corporation    fax:   [phone]  or [phone]