Stabilize piecewise-constant extreme-weight normalization - #5377
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FlorianPfaff merged 3 commits intoAug 21, 2026
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FlorianPfaff
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August 21, 2026 06:41
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Bug
PiecewiseConstantDistributionaccepts arbitrary nonnegative finite interval weights and normalizes them internally. The constructor currently computesmean(w)before normalization. For valid weights near the backend dtype maximum, that reduction can overflow toinf; the subsequent division then collapses the represented density toward zero instead of preserving the input weight ratios.For example,
[max_float, max_float / 2, 0]has a perfectly well-defined normalized density, but the direct mean can overflow even though every input is finite.Fix
Normalize after scaling by the largest input weight. The scaling division is split through
sqrt(max_weight)so backends that lower division through reciprocals do not underflow the reciprocal of a near-maximum finite value.This preserves the existing normalization formula and all ordinary-scale behavior while avoiding the unnecessary large intermediate reduction.
Regression coverage
Adds
tests/distributions/test_piecewise_constant_extreme_weights.py, which constructs the distribution from backend-dtype maximum finite weights and verifies:Scope
mainatbaac3b1736bb8e81eafc1e3f69e10104636103b9;