Why do some prometheus metric values return +Inf

Question

Occasionally when I query prometheus using the api endpoint one or more of the metric values will be +Inf. What does +Inf mean and what causes a metric value to be +Inf ?

Additional info:

This data is coming from a Gauge metric type

The query is a simple sum query. ie. sum(my_metric)

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 04 '20 at 19:39

4

+Inf stands for a positive infinite number, it would be easier if you would pass what are you measuring, but most probably you're getting this value because if dividing by 0.

Anyway, it's a normal value of float64.

answered Jun 04 '20 at 19:39

Armatorix

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It's not really "normal" value. Yes IEEE 754 supports it, but, for example, JSON does not. – Dzmitry Lazerka Oct 05 '22 at 02:34
But here the JSON values are strings, so it doesn't matter. The conversion is handled on the Prometheus side. – Armatorix Oct 05 '22 at 08:00
Then it should probably handle other IEEE 754 values, like negative zero, signaling/quiet NaNs etc. – Dzmitry Lazerka Oct 05 '22 at 19:42
This one I cannot guarantee, I did not check Prometheus docs/implementation in a while :P – Armatorix Oct 07 '22 at 15:44

Why do some prometheus metric values return +Inf

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