Portability	non-portable (CPP, MPTC, OverlappingInstances)
Stability	beta
Maintainer	wren@community.haskell.org

Data.Number.Transfinite

Description

This module presents a type class for numbers which have representations for transfinite values. The idea originated from the IEEE-754 floating-point special values, used by Data.Number.LogFloat. However not all Fractional types necessarily support transfinite values. In particular, Ratio types including Rational do not have portable representations.

For the Glasgow compiler (GHC 6.8.2), GHC.Real defines 1%0 and 0%0 as representations for infinity and notANumber, but most operations on them will raise exceptions. If toRational is used on an infinite floating value, the result is a rational with a numerator sufficiently large that it will overflow when converted back to a Double. If used on NaN, the result would buggily convert back as negativeInfinity. For more discussion on why this approach is problematic, see:

Hugs (September 2006) stays closer to the haskell98 spec and offers no way of constructing those values, raising arithmetic overflow errors if attempted.

Synopsis

Documentation

class PartialOrd a => Transfinite a whereSource

Many numbers are not Bounded yet, even though they can represent arbitrarily large values, they are not necessarily able to represent transfinite values such as infinity itself. This class is for types which are capable of representing such values. Notably, this class does not require the type to be Fractional nor Floating since integral types could also have representations for transfinite values. By popular demand the Num restriction has been lifted as well, due to complications of defining Show or Eq for some types.

In particular, this class extends the ordered projection to have a maximum value infinity and a minimum value negativeInfinity, as well as an exceptional value notANumber. All the natural laws regarding infinity and negativeInfinity should pertain. (Some of these are discussed below.)

Methods

infinity :: aSource

A transfinite value which is greater than all finite values. Adding or subtracting any finite value is a no-op. As is multiplying by any non-zero positive value (including infinity), and dividing by any positive finite value. Also obeys the law negate infinity = negativeInfinity with all appropriate ramifications.

negativeInfinity :: aSource

A transfinite value which is less than all finite values. Obeys all the same laws as infinity with the appropriate changes for the sign difference.

notANumber :: aSource

An exceptional transfinite value for dealing with undefined results when manipulating infinite values. The following operations must return notANumber, where inf is any value which isInfinite:

```
inf + inf
```
```
inf - inf
```
```
inf * 0
```
```
0 * inf
```
```
inf / inf
```
```
inf div inf
```
```
0 / 0
```
```
0 div 0
```

Additionally, any mathematical operations on notANumber must also return notANumber, and any equality or ordering comparison on notANumber must return False. Since it returns false for equality, there may be more than one machine representation of this value.

isInfinite :: a -> Bool Source

Return true for both infinity and negativeInfinity, false for all other values.

isNaN :: a -> Bool Source

Return true only for notANumber.

Instances

Transfinite Double
Transfinite Float

log :: (Floating a, Transfinite a) => a -> aSource

Since the normal log throws an error on zero, we have to redefine it in order for things to work right. Arguing from limits we can see that log 0 == negativeInfinity. Newer versions of GHC have this behavior already, but older versions and Hugs do not.

This function will raise an error when taking the log of negative numbers, rather than returning notANumber as the newer GHC implementation does. The reason being that typically this is a logical error, and notANumber allows the error to propegate silently.

In order to improve portability, the Transfinite class is required to indicate that the Floating type does in fact have a representation for negative infinity. Both native floating types (Double and Float) are supported. If you define your own instance of Transfinite, verify the above equation holds for your 0 and negativeInfinity. If it doesn't, then you should avoid importing our log and will probably want converters to handle the discrepancy.

class (Real a, Fractional b) => RealToFrac a b whereSource

The realToFrac function is defined to pivot through a Rational according to the haskell98 spec. This is non-portable and problematic as discussed above. Since there is some resistance to breaking from the spec, this class defines a reasonable variant which deals with transfinite values appropriately.

N.B. The generic instance for transfinite types uses expensive checks to ensure correctness. On GHC there are specialized versions which use primitive converters instead. These instances are hidden from other compilers by the CPP. Be warned that the instances are overlapped, so you'll need to give type signatures if the arguments to realToFrac are polymorphic.

If any of these restrictions (CPP, GHC-only, OverlappingInstances) are onerous to you, contact the maintainer (we like patches :)

Methods

realToFrac :: a -> bSource

Instances

RealToFrac Double Float
RealToFrac Float Double
RealToFrac Int Double
RealToFrac Int Float
RealToFrac Integer Double
RealToFrac Integer Float
(Real a, Transfinite a, Fractional b, Transfinite b) => RealToFrac a b
(Real a, Fractional a) => RealToFrac a a