x**2 should about equal x*x (including for a float x such that the result is

inf) but didn't; added a test to test_float to verify that, and ignored the
ERANGE value for errno in the pow operation to make the new test pass (with
help from Marilyn Davis at the Google Python Sprint -- thanks!).

Lib/test/test_float.py

@@ -99,12 +99,25 @@ class IEEEFormatTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
                               ('<f', LE_FLOAT_NAN)]:
                 struct.unpack(fmt, data)
 
+# on an IEEE platform, "overflowing" operations produce infinity
+
+class IEEEOperationsTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
+    if float.__getformat__("double").startswith("IEEE"):
+        def test_double_infinity(self):
+            big = 4.8e159
+            pro = big*big
+            self.assertEquals(repr(pro), 'inf')
+            sqr = big**2
+            self.assertEquals(repr(sqr), 'inf')
+
 
 def test_main():
     test_support.run_unittest(
         FormatFunctionsTestCase,
         UnknownFormatTestCase,
-        IEEEFormatTestCase)
+        IEEEFormatTestCase,
+        IEEEOperationsTestCase,
+        )
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     test_main()