Turn off ZeroDivisionError?

[Christian Heimes]

Grant Edwards wrote:
> I've always found that check to be really annoying.  Every time
> anybody asks about floating point handling, the standard
> response is that "Python just does whatever the underlying
> platform does".  Except it doesn't in cases like this. All my
> platforms do exactly what I want for division by zero: they
> generate a properly signed INF.  Python chooses to override
> that (IMO correct) platform behavior with something surprising.
> Python doesn't generate exceptions for other floating point
> "events" -- why the inconsistency with divide by zero?

I'm aware result is arguable and professional users may prefer +INF for
1/0. However Python does the least surprising thing. It raises an
exception because everybody has learned at school 1/0 is not allowed.

>From the PoV of a mathematician Python does the right thing, too. 1/0 is
not defined, only the lim(1/x) for x -> 0 is +INF. From the PoV of a
numerics guy it's surprising.

Do you suggest that 1./0. results into +INF [1]? What should be the
result of 1/0?

Christian

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero#Division_by_zero_in_computer_arithmetic