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From: Jeffrey Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.not.acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: How to check a Float for NaN
Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 15:59:07 -0700
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Date: 2014-05-27T15:59:07-07:00
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On 05/27/2014 03:35 PM, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
> I much prefer this sort of solution (where the missing values are explicitly
> treated) rather than using some sort of magic number (a NaN being an extreme
> version of that). The name alone tells you that it doesn't belong in a
> numeric type -- since when is something that is "not a number" belong in a
> type defining numbers?

It's a clear violation of the software-engineering principle that a value has 
only a single meaning. (Of course, returning zero from Ada.Strings.Fixed.Index 
is the same error.)

-- 
Jeff Carter
"There's no messiah here. There's a mess all right, but no messiah."
Monty Python's Life of Brian
84