Division and multiplication have a different behavior in the overflow case

Marco m.b at gmail.com
Sat Jul 27 13:48:34 EDT 2013


In Python 3, when we hava a division and both the result and at least 
one operand are too large to convert to float, we get an exception:

     >>> 2**1028 / 2**-2
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
     OverflowError: long int too large to convert to float

When the result is inside the limits, we get the right value:

     >>> 2 ** 1025 / 2**10
     3.511119404027961e+305

Why the behavior is different in the case of the multiplication?

     >>> 2 ** 1025 * 2**-10
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "<input>", line 1, in <module>
     OverflowError: long int too large to convert to float

I think the multiplication should have the same behavior than the
division:

* `inf` or `-inf` when the operands are inside the limits,
   but the result is not
* `OverflowError`  when the result, and at least one operand,
   are out of range.
-- 
Marco Buttu



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