Frits van Bommel wrote:
Don wrote:
In the case complex = int/complex, there's no problem. It's the case
int = int/complex that doesn't make sense.
And that's fundamentally because cast(real)(2 + 3i) doesn't have a
definite answer.
Devil's advocate: one could argue it's the same as cast(int) of a float
-- it returns the closest representable value, for some definition of
"closest".
Sure, you're at liberty to argue anything. But mathematicians don't do
that. Nor should we. It's misleading, and just not helpful.
BTW, another equally reasonable and equally unhelpful way you could
define cast(real)(x + iy) is as sqrt(x*x - y*y).
The most justifiable way to do it would be to say
cast(real)(x+iy) is:
if (y==0) return x; else throw(CastError);
But again, it's just not helpful. Make it a compile-time error.
