Re: missing information and aggregates

From: Mikito Harakiri <mikharakiri_at_ywho.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 12:04:46 -0700
Message-ID: <Ix47b.23$741.208@news.oracle.com>

"Mikito Harakiri" <mikharakiri_at_ywho.com> wrote in message news:EA37b.21$741.207_at_news.oracle.com...
> > While it might complicate things a bit, the IEEE floating point specs
> > have some NaN (Not a Number) configurations that would be standard.
>
> What max(NaN, 5) is? I certainly know that max("minus infinity", 5) = 5.
> Note that you must have 2 infinity symbols to be able to handle cases like
> this, not just a single one.

Well, given that

"minus infinity" = - "plus infinity"

one symbol only. Anyhow, I prefer a smart symbol that is aware about ariphmetics and returns reasonable answers versus a dumb one that has a universal simplistic answer "Don't know" to all math problem. Received on Mon Sep 08 2003 - 14:04:46 CDT