How do I say a = inf in Lua?

["Daniel van Ham Colchete" <daniel.colchete@...>]

Hi yall!

I've been doing some tests with infinite numbers. I couldn't find a reserved keyword for the infinite or minus infinite numbers. But, when Lua is using double floatint point as the number type they work. I just have to use something I know from the hardware: that 1e309 is infinite in double and that -1e309 is minus infinite in double precision. Look at some tests:

> big = 1e309
> small = -1e309
> print(big, small)
inf     -inf
> print ( 0 > big, -1 > big, 1 > big)
false   false   false
> print ( 0 > small, -1 > small, 1 > small)
true    true    true
> print (small > big)
false
> print (big > small)
true

So, it works the way it should. My question is related to the fact that 1e309 is not the most beautiful way of saying "inf". Is there any other way? Altough "print(big)" will say "inf" I can't do just "big = inf". So, when somebodyelse is reading my code he is going to ask: what the fudge is 1e309? Why can't it be 2e309 or 1e308? 1e308 doesn't work because it is not infinite yet.

Just a small joke: "Do you know what number is bigger than any other number? 1e309". He he, just made this one.

I searched on Google, PIL and the list archive (since I joined) first.

Best regards,
Daniel Colchete