Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!gatech!gitpyr!scott
From: scott@gitpyr.gatech.EDU (Scott Holt)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Division by Zero questions?
Message-ID: <2645@gitpyr.gatech.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Nov-86 19:04:39 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.2645
Posted: Sun Nov 16 19:04:39 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 01:56:50 EST
References: <763@chinet.UUCP>
Reply-To: scott@gitpyr.UUCP (Scott Holt)
Distribution: net
Organization: Drunken Frat Boys, Inc.
Lines: 16

>Now, I feel the AT&T is doing the correct thing. The question is what in the
>world is my Zilog doing, and where do those "NAN" and "INF" messages come from
>on the printf statements.
>

   I suspect that INF means INFinite (which is what some people call the 
result of devision by zero) and NAN means "Not A Number." 

   Some machines have a floating point representation for infinity and a
corresponding integer representation. Such machines may allow operations
that result in infinity and only give an error when infinity is used in
another calculation.  Since the machine has a representation for infinity,
the I/O routines need a way to print this value...hence INF/NAN.

                     - Scott Holt
                       scott@gitpyr