In Java, what does NaN mean?

Question

I have a program that tries to shrink a double down to a desired number. The output I get is NaN.

What does NaN mean in Java?<

Answer 1

NaN means "Not a number." It's a special floating point value that means that the result of an operation was not defined or not representable as a real number.

See here for more explanation of this value.

Answer 2

NaN stands for Not a Number. It is used to signify any value that is mathematically undefined. Like dividing 0.0 by 0.0. You can look here for more information: https://web.archive.org/web/20120819091816/http://www.concentric.net/~ttwang/tech/javafloat.htm

Post your program here if you need more help.

Answer 3

Taken from this page:

"NaN" stands for "not a number". "Nan" is produced if a floating point operation has some input parameters that cause the operation to produce some undefined result. For example, 0.0 divided by 0.0 is arithmetically undefined. Taking the square root of a negative number is also undefined.

Answer 4

NaN means “Not a Number” and is basically a representation of a special floating point value in the IEE 754 floating point standard. NaN generally means that the value is something that cannot be expressed with a valid floating point number.

A conversion will result in this value, when the value being converted is something else, for example when converting a string that does not represent a number.

Answer 5

Not a valid floating-point value (e.g. the result of division by zero)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NaN

Answer 6

Not a Java guy, but in JS and other languages I use it's "Not a Number", meaning some operation caused it to become not a valid number.