[Numpy-discussion] Binary ufuncs: minimum

[Keith Goodman]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 4:27 PM, Nathan Bell <wnbell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Christopher Barker
> <Chris.Barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not so sure. I know I wouldn't expect to get a different type back
>> with a call to abs(). Do we really want to change that expectation just
>> for the case of MIN_INT?
>>
>> While everyone is going to want an unsigned value when calling abs(),
>> who knows if they might want to use negative numbers later? Like:
>>
>> x = abs(x)
>> x *= -1
>>
>> Now what do we get/want?
>
> IMO abs() returning non-negative numbers is a more fundamental
> property.  In-place operations on integer arrays are somewhat
> dangerous, and best left to more sophisticated users anyway.
>
>
> Interestingly, MATLAB (v7.5.0) takes a different approach:
>
>>> A = int8([ -128, 1])
> A =
>  -128    1
>>> abs(A)
> ans =
>  127    1
>>> -A
> ans =
>  127   -1

octave-3.0.1:1> A = int8([-128,1])
A =
  -128  1
octave-3.0.1:2> abs(A)
ans =
   128     1
octave-3.0.1:3> -A
ans =
   127    -1