Infinite is a real number in 4D

Final Update:

I’ve made a feature request to 4D

http://forums.4d.fr/Post/EN/4516107/1/4516108#4516108

Original Post:

While programming in 4D I discovered that 1/0 does not throw an error, and that it could be stored into a record as INF when the data type is REAL. Please someone tell me they find this as unreasonable as I do.

UPDATE: Depending on the declared type of the variable 4D stores two different results

[Table]Field_Real:=1/0 ` results is INF
` totally unrelated but just as bizarre
[Table]Field_Integer:=1/0 ` results is 2147483647

Why is this bad? Well for one php, ruby, python, perl, java, c++, javascript, calculators, all throw errors when dividing by zero so why doesn’t 4D?

Also, how do you do a SQL call on INF? How you query on INF? Why can you store an infinite number in a REAL datatype? Why does 4D return a different result for the same operation depending on data type?

  ` declare some variables
C_REAL($inf)
C_TEXT($tmp)
  ` $inf = 0
$inf:=1
  ` $inf=1
$inf:=1/0
  ` $inf=INF ($inf#"INF" comparison error)
$inf:=$inf+10
  ` $inf still equal INF
$tmp:=String($inf)
  ` $tmp="INF"
If ($tmp="INF")
    ALERT("inf")
End if

CREATE RECORD([People])
[People]Name:="Joe Bob" ` data type alpha
[People]Hourly_Rate:=$inf ` data type REAL
  ` [People]Hourly_Rate=INF (even the field object shows "INF" on a form)
SAVE RECORD([People])

I called 4D, they didn’t know if I could file a bug because it wasn’t clear if it’s a feature or an undocumented part of the system.

UPDATE:

4D says INF is really the representation of a “really large” number. Thus it is a feature, and is up to the developer to make sure not to divide by zero.

Author’s Note

Initial md Generated using https://github.com/jsr6720/wordpress-html-scraper-to-md

Original Wordpress categories: [‘4D’]

Original Wordpress tags: “4D”, “4D”, “divide by zero”, “infinate”, “real”

Original Wordpress comments: None

  • May 13th, 2024 just wait until I discover JavaScript math…

Significant revisions

tags: 2010, wordpress, txcowboycoder, 4D, programmer-math, gotchas

  • May 6th, 2024 Converted to jekyll markdown format and copied to personal site
  • Oct 22nd, 2010 Originally published on txcowboycoder wordpress site

EOF/Footnotes