• Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> May 24 2008
• janderson <askme me.com> May 24 2008
• torhu <no spam.invalid> May 24 2008
• e-t172 <e-t172 akegroup.org> May 25 2008
• Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> May 25 2008

Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:

It does not mean  "null" , it does not mean "0" , it does not mean "" so just
what does it signify

Not a number is cryptic . If it is not a number then just what is it ?

janderson <askme me.com> writes:

Tower Ty wrote:
 It does not mean  "null" , it does not mean "0" , it does not mean "" so just
what does it signify
 
 Not a number is cryptic . If it is not a number then just what is it ?


It signifies that whatever was assigned to the value was "not a number". 
  That is the program had no idea how to compute or assign a value given 
the input.  Its really a sentinel to indicate error or un-assignment.

-Joel

torhu <no spam.invalid> writes:

Tower Ty wrote:
 It does not mean  "null" , it does not mean "0" , it does not mean "" so just
what does it signify
 
 Not a number is cryptic . If it is not a number then just what is it ?


It's just a special bit pattern that floating point operations can 
result in when there's no sensible answer to put there.  Like when you 
divide by zero, or do other illegal operations.  If you do 
writefln(0/0.0), it will print 'nan'.

e-t172 <e-t172 akegroup.org> writes:

Tower Ty a écrit :
 It does not mean  "null" , it does not mean "0" , it does not mean "" so just
what does it signify
 
 Not a number is cryptic . If it is not a number then just what is it ?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN

Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:

e-t172 Wrote:

 Tower Ty a écrit :
 It does not mean  "null" , it does not mean "0" , it does not mean "" so just
what does it signify
 
 Not a number is cryptic . If it is not a number then just what is it ?


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN


Thanks to you all . If we had a preferred answer system the above  link would
be the winner .