Learning Kotlin Programming

Handy Kotlin Edge Case Numerical Handling

It's handy to learn about Infinity, and NaN (Not a Number) of Kotlin when programming with calculation

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Coming from a traditional C programmer era when I started learning to program, calculations like the below will result in a crash, as they are not handled by the compiler well.

float result1 = somevalue/zero;

float result2 = sqrt(negativeValue);

It is normal for programmers back in those days to ensure we try-catch them or manually handle them e.g. to avoid zero, always return a very small number.

Discovery of Infinity and NaN

Recently, I explored a smooth curvy line graph plotting algorithm, where I need to calculate some slope using

dydx = (x2-x1)/(y2-y1).

When we have y2-y1, there’s a possibility of getting 0, which might crash this equation (x2-x1)/(y2-y1) when apply to old C programming.

But to my surprise, there weren’t any clashes even though I don’t try-catch them or special handle them.

Then I realize when I have y2-y1 that result in 0, the (x2-x1)/(y2-y1), not only didn’t crash the program but instead…