Re^2: Incrementing "Infinity" bug (numification, perlnumber, magic increment decrement)

[LanX]

It's a bug or at least a design flow.

Creating a constant which returns a numified inf easily fixes this problem

  DB<100> use constant inf => inf+0
 => 0

  DB<101> $a=inf
 => "inf"

  DB<102> ++$a
 => "inf"

  DB<103> ++$a
 => "inf"

So why doesn't Perl do this per default?

do we really need to use hacks like 1e9999 to create inf?

[Anonymous Monk]

It's a bug or at least a design flow.

How do you figure? I think it isn't

So why doesn't Perl do this per default?

You know why, tradition (backwards compatibility ). "barewords" have always been strings

Also style, lowercase constants are unbecoming :p

do we really need to use hacks like 1e9999 to create inf?

We never needed that, use  0+'inf' or  int '-inf' ...

But hey, one of the math modules could export ... or even  use feature 'infinity'; could happen though I don't see the benefit, but what do I know

$ perl -le " for(1..4){  print for \int 'infinity', \int'-infinity' } 
+"
SCALAR(0x99bc74)
SCALAR(0x99bc64)
SCALAR(0x99bc74)
SCALAR(0x99bc64)
SCALAR(0x99bc74)
SCALAR(0x99bc64)
SCALAR(0x99bc74)
SCALAR(0x99bc64)

update: nans, infs, and vomit, How to create nan/inf says bigint/bigrat export inf that stringifies to inf

Also note Re^3: nans, infs, and vomit (underlying c-runtime and strtod, atof)

[LanX]

> We never needed that,

I showed a use case producing short, self-explanatory code with the use of inf.

> use 0+inf or int '-inf' ...

sure, why not introducing one more level of cryptic workarounds to justify perl's reputation of a line-noise-language instead of having self explanatory constants?

> update:

well ... no comment on the fact of an AnoMonk who can update his nodes ...;-)

[Anonymous Monk]

> We never needed that,
I showed a use case producing short, self-explanatory code with the use of inf.

But what has that got to do with the whack/hack 1e9999 ?

 $ perl -le " print for 1 .. 0+'Inf'"
Range iterator outside integer range at -e line 1.

sure, why not introducing one more level of cryptic workarounds to justify perl's reputation of a line-noise-language instead of having self explanatory constants?

you know, I linked to the docs, the explanation, and the inf constant exporters (bigrat/bigint )

perl is fundamentally what it is, and it works the way it has for over a decade, if you don't like it, don't use it; calling it line-noise and cryptic at every turn is uninspired and uninteresting

update:

well ... no comment on the fact of an AnoMonk who can update his nodes ...;-)

Boring :/