Positive fractional power of zero is not undefined

[Peter Berry]

Binary package hint: gcalctool

Apparently gcalctool computes fractional powers by way of logarithms. Unfortunately this fails if the base is 0 (the result should always be 1, unless the exponent is 0, in which case it may be undefined, though gcalctool says 0^0=1). For example 0^(2/3) = 1, but gcalctool complains "Logarithm of zero is undefined" (which is correct in the reals, since in y = b^x, for any fixed b != 0 the limit of x as y approaches 0 is negative infinity). Perhaps this should be a special case.

[Peter Berry (pwberry)]

Obvious correction: 0^n = 0 if n > 0.

[flipefr (flipefr)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[flipefr (flipefr)]

I can reproduce it as you say, thanks again for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

Forwarded upstream to GNOME, see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=634066.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gcalctool - 6.0.1~git20110421-0ubuntu1

---------------
gcalctool (6.0.1~git20110421-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
    - Fixes (LP: #756277) (LP: #760536) (LP: #760718) (LP: #668512)
      (LP: #755820)
 -- Robert Ancell <email address hidden> Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:11:46 +1000