Re: Difference between NaN and NA?

[Søren Hauberg]

fre, 09 04 2010 kl. 08:07 +0200, skrev Matthias Brennwald:
> On Apr 9, 2010, at 7:44 AM, Søren Hauberg wrote:
> 
> > So, I guess my basic question is: is it even possible to create a class
> > that deals with NaN's (or NA's) entirely behind the users back?
> 
> I did not fully understand everything in previous discussion of the
> technical details about what might be changed in Octave and how to do
> it. However, I have a clear opinion (if not a wish and hope) on the
> above question: I (the user) would like to keep control over how NaN
> and NA values are treated. I prefer doing checks on the existence of
> NaN or NA values in my data, and explicitly treat these values the way
> I want. No black magic, please!

Just to be clear on the suggestion: it would require the user to
manually ask for NA-treatment. If we had this class, you would have to
do something like

  data = load ("mydata.txt");
  NA_safe_data = NA_friendly_matrix (data);
  # Process 'NA_safe_data'

So, any potential black magic would require the user to ask for it.

Søren