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authorEric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>2014-07-29 16:57:55 -0600
committerEric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>2014-07-29 16:57:55 -0600
commitd8a19e0336347e10c2640b01b96fd09ab7288528 (patch)
tree9baa505d7747d7a9707790e54a92d6e9145e7727 /doc
parent436db6237ce2062aac3611a294b85ceb39e8aeb8 (diff)
downloadcoreutils-d8a19e0336347e10c2640b01b96fd09ab7288528.tar.xz
doc: clarify that floating point parses "inf"
* doc/coreutils.texi (Floating point): Document handling of "inf", "infinity", "NaN", and so on.
Diffstat (limited to 'doc')
-rw-r--r--doc/coreutils.texi13
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index 19a523d8e..96f07816f 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -1069,11 +1069,14 @@ Commands that accept floating point numbers as options, operands or
input use the standard C functions @code{strtod} and @code{strtold} to
convert from text to floating point numbers. These floating point
numbers therefore can use scientific notation like @code{1.0e-34} and
-@code{-10e100}. Modern C implementations also accept hexadecimal
-floating point numbers such as @code{-0x.ep-3}, which stands for
-@minus{}14/16 times @math{2^-3}, which equals @minus{}0.109375. The
-@env{LC_NUMERIC} locale determines the decimal-point character.
-@xref{Parsing of Floats,,, libc, The GNU C Library Reference Manual}.
+@code{-10e100}. Commands that parse floating point also understand
+case-insensitive @code{inf}, @code{infinity}, and @code{NaN}, although
+whether such values are useful depends on the command in question.
+Modern C implementations also accept hexadecimal floating point
+numbers such as @code{-0x.ep-3}, which stands for @minus{}14/16 times
+@math{2^-3}, which equals @minus{}0.109375. The @env{LC_NUMERIC}
+locale determines the decimal-point character. @xref{Parsing of
+Floats,,, libc, The GNU C Library Reference Manual}.
@node Signal specifications
@section Signal specifications