How to trace a NaN in C++

In Visual Studio you can use the _controlfp function to set the behavior of floating-point calculations (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e9b52ceh(VS.80).aspx). Maybe there is a similar variant for your platform.

Some notes on floating point programming can be found on http://ds9a.nl/fp/ including the difference between 1/0 and 1.0/0 etc, and what a NaN is and how it acts.

Since you mention using gdb, here's a solution that works with gcc -- you want the functions defined in fenv.h :

#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <fenv.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
   double dirty = 0.0;

   feenableexcept(FE_ALL_EXCEPT & ~FE_INEXACT);  // Enable all floating point exceptions but FE_INEXACT
   double nanval=0.0/dirty;
   printf("Succeeded! dirty=%lf, nanval=%lf\n",dirty,nanval);
}

Running the above program produces the output "Floating point exception". Without the call to feenableexcept, the "Succeeded!" message is printed.

If you were to write a signal handler for SIGFPE, that might be a good place to set a breakpoint and get the traceback you want. (Disclaimer: haven't tried it!)