Re: [Numpy-discussion] x.min() depends on ordering

[Charles R H. <cha...@gm...>]

On 11/11/06, Tim Hochberg <tim...@ie...> wrote:
>
> Robert Kern wrote:


<snip>

My preference would be to raise an error / warning when there is a nan
> in the array. Technically, there is no minimum value when a nan is
> present. I believe that this would be feasible be swapping the compare
> from 'a < b' to '!(a >= b)'. This should return NaN if any NaNs are
> present and I suspect the extra '!' will have minimal performance impact
> but it would have to be tested. Then a warning or error could be issued
> on the way out depending on the erstate. Arguably returning NaN is more
> correct than returning the smallest non NaN anyway.
>

No telling what compiler optimizations might do with  '!(a >= b)' if they
assume that '!(a >= b)' == 'a < b'. For instance,

if !(a >= b)
    do something;
else
    do otherwise;

might branch to the second statement on  'a <b' and fall through to the
first otherwise.

Chuck