Bill Page wrote:
> 
> On 10 September 2016 at 08:38, Waldek Hebisch <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> >>
> >> What's the right thing to do?
> >>
> >> (1) -> 0.0 ^ (0::NNI)
> >>
> >>    (1)  1.0
> >>                                                                   Type: 
> >> Float
<snip>
> > For approximate exponents it make sense to leave it undefiend
> > (and signal errors when users try to use it).
> >
> 
> Are 0$DFLOAT and 1$DFLOAT really only approximate in FriCAS? In
> general I thought the most consistent approach to floats was to treat
> all (representable) floating point numbers as exact but to admit that
> floating point operations are often necessarily approximate.

If a function gets 0 as an argument, then there is good chance to
this 0 is mathematically correct.  But when mathematically you
should get 0, rounding error may lead to small nonzero number.
Given that x^y is discontinous at (0,0), depending on definition
of x^y at (0, 0) is error prone.  So it makes sense to "undefine"
it and signal error.

> Apparently before SBCL 1.0.41.47, SBCL used to return
> 
> (expt 0.0 0.0) -> 1.0
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/sbcl/+bug/571581
> 
> But is there any good reason that FriCAS should follow this "standard"?

I do not understand your position here.  First you argue that
we should treat it as exact case, so return 1.  Then you
apparently have opposite position...

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch

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