http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=703222

syphilis has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,
How do I portably create nans and infs in perl ?
Any solution that uses a core perl module would be fine. Specifically, I'm looking to create variables that Devel::Peek::Dump() as something like:
Positive inf: SV = NV(0x465ffc) at 0x42fca4 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (NOK,pNOK) NV = 1.#INF Negative inf: SV = NV(0x465ff4) at 0x42fcc4 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (NOK,pNOK) NV = -1.#INF
At least that's how they should look on Windows. Other operating systems will be essentially the same, though the precise contents of the NV slot could be different (eg 'inf').
I'm not exactly sure what the nan looks like - I guess it, too, will be an NV with 1.#NAN filling the NV slot (on Windows).

Is it possible to create an IV with 1.#INF in the IV slot, or are infinities necessarily NV's ?

Cheers,
Rob