[Maxima-bugs] [maxima:bugs] #4642 sign(1.0e-310*%i) gives error because 1e-310*x/1e-310 fails

[Stavros M. <mac...@us...>]

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**[bugs:#4642] sign(1.0e-310*%i) gives error because 1e-310*x/1e-310 fails**

**Status:** open
**Group:** None
**Labels:** sign splitprod floating point 
**Created:** Tue Dec 02, 2025 07:59 PM UTC by Stavros Macrakis
**Last Updated:** Tue Dec 02, 2025 07:59 PM UTC
**Owner:** nobody


As observed in https://sourceforge.net/p/maxima/bugs/4638/#2782: 
`sign(1.0e-310*%i)` gives an overflow error.

This comes from `splitprod` trying to remove a common factor using `div`, but
``1e-310*x/1e-310`` => overflow, because 1/1e-310 is not representable.

I tried the quick and dirty hack of replacing ``div`` with ``remove``, but that was never going to work in general....

I don't think we can or should fix ``1e-310*x/1e-310`` -- Maxima's notion that `x/y == x*(1/y)` is too deeply ingrained. But I wonder whether it is worth fixing `splitprod`.



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