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From: Tim Rentsch
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: bart again (UCX64)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 12:36:17 -0700
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scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
> NaN is a term of art referring specifically to the IEEE
> floating point standard. I've never seen "NaN" used in any
> other context (albeit some use it to refer to their grandmother :-).
The C standard uses (and also defines) the word NaN as a generic
term applicable to floating-point representations in general. In
section 5.2.4.2.2 paragraph 3, the C standard says this
A /NaN/ is an encoding signifying Not-a-Number.
with the slant characters meaning italics, which indicates a
definition. The same paragraph gives generic definitions for
the more specialized terms "quiet NaN" and "signaling NaN".
There is a footnote that mentions the IEEE floating-point
standard, but makes clear that terms for the various kinds of NaN
can refer to values in other floating-point systems that have
similar behavior.