Java isNan how it works?

Question

I was looking at the openjdk-1.7.0_25 source code and I have seen this method:

/**
 * Returns {@code true} if the specified number is a
 * Not-a-Number (NaN) value, {@code false} otherwise.
 *
 * @param   v   the value to be tested.
 * @return  {@code true} if the argument is NaN;
 *          {@code false} otherwise.
 */
static public boolean isNaN(float v) {
    return (v != v);
}

I can't understand how it works, when this method can return true?

Answer 1

That method can return true for certain operations, for example:

System.out.println(Float.isNaN(0.0f / 0.0f));
System.out.println(Double.isNaN(Math.sqrt(-1)));

Basically, NaN represents an undefined value. The value of 0.0 / 0.0 is NaN, and Nan != NaN. It may seem logical because Math.sqrt(-1) also gives you NaN.

See the javadoc of Double.NaN:

It is equivalent to the value returned by Double.longBitsToDouble(0x7ff8000000000000L)

And then Double.longBitsToDouble():

If the argument is any value in the range 0x7ff0000000000001L through 0x7fffffffffffffffL or in the range 0xfff0000000000001L through 0xffffffffffffffffL, the result is a NaN. No IEEE 754 floating-point operation provided by Java can distinguish between two NaN values of the same type with different bit patterns.

Answer 2

From Java Language Specification:

Floating-point equality testing is performed in accordance with the rules of the IEEE 754 standard:

• If either operand is NaN, then the result of == is false but the result of != is true. Indeed, the test x!=x is true if and only if the value of x is NaN. (The methods Float.isNaN and Double.isNaN may also be used to test whether a value is NaN.)

• Positive zero and negative zero are considered equal. Therefore, -0.0==0.0 is true, for example.

• Otherwise, two distinct floating-point values are considered unequal by the equality operators. In particular, there is one value representing positive infinity and one value representing negative infinity; each compares equal only to itself, and each compares unequal to all other values.

Answer 3

Because only NaN compares false with itself. So it will return true when you pass NaN to the method.

A comparison with a NaN always returns an unordered result even when comparing with itself. ... The equality and inequality predicates are non-signaling so x = x returning false can be used to test if x is a quiet NaN.

Source

It not just about Java, It is also true for all languages following IEEE754 standard.

Related question : Why does Double.NaN==Double.NaN return false?

Answer 4

Simple.. Nan is always != NaN, these values are not equal to anything. See this:

As has already been described, NaN is unordered, so a numeric comparison operation involving one or two NaNs returns false and any != comparison involving NaN returns true, including x!=x when x is NaN.

So testing if v != v is sufficient to tell whether the value is NaN or not.

Answer 5

As far as I know NaN value is not equal to anything.So when you passed float v,It's never not equal to it self.