Check the sign of a number

New to Julia
1

Does Julia have a simple way to check the sign of a number? Something like:

sign(-4) = -1
sign(4) = 1
2

That function exists with that name, no?

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3

You can try searching the docs, e.g. Search · The Julia Language, they are sometimes not great but here the third answer is to the function Numbers · The Julia Language and the fourth is to the section Mathematical Operations and Elementary Functions · The Julia Language

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4

That was strange. Somehow my code threw and error when I tried, and I just assumed it it didn’t exist. I should have checked the simple case…

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5

Note that if you try this on a vector, e.g. sign([1;4]) then you’ll get an error since the correct syntax would be sign.([1;4])

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6

If the code you tried is exactly what you posted, that was not comparison (==) but assignment (=). That would explain the errors you saw.

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