MATLAB Programming

Numeric Types
Complex Number Functions
See Complex Number Functions on page 2-31 for a list of functions most
commonly used with MATLAB complex numbers in MATLAB.
Infinity and NaN
MATLAB uses the special values inf, -inf, andNaN to represent values that
are positive and negative infinity, and not a number respectively.
Infinity
MATLAB represents infinity by the special value inf. Infinity results from
operations like division by zero and overflow, which lead to results too large
to represent as conventional floating-point values. MATLAB also provides
afunctioncalledinf that returns the IEEE arithmetic representation for
positive infinity as a double scalar value.
Several examples of statements that return positive or negative infinity in
MATLAB are shown here.
x = 1/0
x =
Inf
x = exp(1000)
x =
Inf
x = 1.e1000
x =
Inf
x = log(0)
x =
-Inf
Use the isinf function to verify that x is positive or negative infinity:
x = log(0);
isinf(x)
ans =
1
2-25