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On Oct 14 2010, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
[ Accurate trigonometric functions of huge arguments. ] I gave this example because the problem really occurred a few times with MPFR. Note that in FP arithmetic, it is very easy to get huge values: just consider the result of an overflow rounded to zero. But perhaps things are different in interval arithmetic (however intervals can also be built from FP numbers). This might not be a problem in most applications in practice, but for standard conformance and security (where users could provide ridiculous data to an online application to yield a DoS), it will.
Yes, but I regard that as poor software engineering, and there is a better solution. Such an application should impose an arbitrary upper bound, and raise an exception if that is exceeded every time it becomes relevant. For example, refusing to handle speeds faster than that of light is a safe rule in 99.99% of all known programs :-) Anyway, I am not disagreeing with your point - there are LOTS of functions with no known realistic algorithm for arbitrary precision. It all depends on what you mean by 'realistic'. Regards, Nick Maclaren.