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No more ImaginaryUnit: const im = Complex(false,true). #5468

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merged 4 commits into from
Jan 22, 2014

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StefanKarpinski
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This change requires giving multiplition by Bools special behavior. Approximately, true * x = x and false * x = zero(x), but a bit complicated for the sake of promotion, the only non-trivial example of which is Bool * MathConst, which is promoted to Float64.

Idea originally due to @GunnarFarneback:

Compare against #5313.

This change requires giving multiplition by Bools special behavior.
Approximately, `true * x = x` and `false * x = zero(x)`, but a bit
complicated for the sake of promotion, the only non-trivial example
of which is `Bool * MathConst`, which is promoted to Float64.

Idea originally due to @GunnarFarneback:

    https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/julia-dev/VkGrqnrAdaY
    #2980
    #3728
@JeffBezanson
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This change is hard to resist. It simplifies the code and adds nice behavior like isa(im,Complex) (which means fewer cases to handle).

In the issues linked above, I said I couldn't think of a justification for this. Now I might have one: a pure imaginary type behaves identically to a complex number whose real part behaves like the false in this PR. So if a pure imaginary type is acceptable (as endorsed by Kahan), this should be too. The only remaining question is whether it's ok to use Bool as the requisite "exotic" type. Often bool is not treated as numeric, so that might make it ok.

@@ -42,6 +42,12 @@ abs2(x::Bool) = x
^(x::Bool, y::Bool) = x|!y
^(x::Integer, y::Bool) = y ? x : one(x)

function *{T<:Number}(x::Bool, y::T)
S = promote_type(Bool,T)
ifelse(x, convert(S,y), convert(S,0))
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Just curious, why the use of ifelse here?

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It doesn't require a branch --- both clauses can be evaluated, which often allows better code generation.

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Thanks!

@stevengj
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I like it; I don't see any use for Bool arithmetic otherwise.

@StefanKarpinski
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Alright. If it's good enough for @stevengj, there's not much more I could ask for. The only way we're going to find out if this is ok is by merging it.

StefanKarpinski added a commit that referenced this pull request Jan 22, 2014
No more ImaginaryUnit: `const im = Complex(false,true)`.
@StefanKarpinski StefanKarpinski merged commit 562f015 into master Jan 22, 2014
@StefanKarpinski StefanKarpinski deleted the sk/no-imaginary branch January 22, 2014 23:23
@stevengj
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c(x,y) = x + im*y
code_native(c, (Float64,Float64))

is a lot longer than code_native(Complex, (Float64, Float64)). Seems like some more specialized methods for Complex{Bool} may be needed?

@JeffBezanson
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Working on improving the codegen now.

@stevengj
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Codegen is much improved, but it still does an unnecessary addition of x with 0.0 in the real part. Presumably this will go away once a pure-imaginary type is added.

@JeffBezanson
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We were hoping to avoid a pure imaginary type. But, in addition to the codegen issue, there is also a potential bug:

julia> c(-0.0,0.0)
0.0 + 0.0im

@StefanKarpinski
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What is c?

@JeffBezanson
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Steven's function c(x,y) = x + im*y above.

@StefanKarpinski
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Ok, the core problem is that -0.0 + false is 0.0 rather than -0.0.

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4 participants