If I understand the Sebastian properly, he is not complaining that lua
doesn't differentiate between them, but that these two numbers which
are not normally differentiated do not print the same:
On Sun, Jun 05, 2011 at 12:47:39PM +0200, Sebastian wrote:
The problem of the output from -0 is that -0 does'nt look good.
The user (for example a wow addon user) can be disoriented,
when he read the addon output: "(-20) * 0 = -0.
That, too, is not a bug, it's a feature. Reuben's point applies:
Lua relies on the host C compiler and its libraries. Since C converts
a negative zero to the string -0, so does Lua.
It is a good thing, not a bad thing. The Wikipedia article I cited
in my previous post gives several examples why one would wish to have
information on the sign of a zero.
The claim that -0*0 should be 0, not -0 is wrong too. Quoting the
article: "Multiplication and division follow their usual rules for
combining signs."
D.