[Python-Dev] long(float('nan')) conversion

[Christian Heimes]

Hello!

Bug http://bugs.python.org/issue1481296 describes a problem where
long(float('nan')) causes a seg fault on Mac OS X. On other platforms it
returns 0L, e.g.

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Oct  5 2007, 13:36:32)
[GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
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>>> float('nan')
nan
>>> long(float('nan'))
0L

My patch to Python 2.6 adds an explicit check for NaNs to always return
0L. It did feel a bit strange but it's the default on some platforms.
Today an user pointed out that he doesn't like the patch, too.

How should the problem be solved? In my humble opinion
long(float('nan')) should return 0L in Python 2.5.2 for b/w
compatibility and raise a ValueError or OverflowError in Python 2.6+.

Christian