NaN behavior

From: Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com>
To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: NaN behavior
Date: 2007-01-12 02:04:12
Message-ID: 1168567452.5462.29.camel@localhost.localdomain
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers pgsql-patches

postgres=# select 'NaN'::numeric = 'NaN'::numeric,
'NaN'::float8 = 'NaN'::float8;
?column? | ?column?
----------+----------
t | t
(1 row)

This behavior is inconsistent with most people's notion of "NaN" -- in
particular, it is inconsistent with IEEE754. I can understand why
Postgres behaves this way, and we probably can't easily change it (if we
want to continue indexing NaN values, that is), but I think it should at
least be discussed in the documentation.

Comments? I'll write up a doc patch, barring any objections.

-Neil

Responses

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Christopher Kings-Lynne 2007-01-12 02:07:38 Re: PANIC: block 463 unfound during REDO after out of
Previous Message Alvaro Herrera 2007-01-12 01:09:18 Re: [HACKERS] unusual performance for vac following 8.2upgrade

Browse pgsql-patches by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Jaime Casanova 2007-01-12 02:05:58 Re: [PATCHES] Tablespace for temporary objects and sort files
Previous Message Simon Riggs 2007-01-11 23:10:38 Re: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] wal_checksum = on (default) | off