How to implement infinity in Java?

Question

Does Java have anything to represent infinity for every numerical data type? How is it implemented such that I can do mathematical operations with it?

E.g.

Answer 1

I'm supposing you're using integer math for a reason. If so, you can get a result that's functionally nearly the same as POSITIVE_INFINITY by using the MAX_VALUE field of the Integer class:

Integer myInf = Integer.MAX_VALUE;

(And for NEGATIVE_INFINITY you could use MIN_VALUE.) There will of course be some functional differences, e.g., when comparing myInf to a value that happens to be MAX_VALUE: clearly this number isn't less than myInf.

There's also a library that actually has fields POSITIVE_INFINITY and NEGATIVE_INFINITY, but they are really just new names for MAX_VALUE and MIN_VALUE.