title: Does PostgreSQL numeric type support infinity (and -infinity)?
body: <p>Following on from this question and subsequent answers:
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25927464/appropriate-values-for-infinity-infinity-in-postgres">Appropriate values for -Infinity &amp; Infinity in Postgres</a></p>
  
  <p>and the <a href="https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/datatype-numeric.html" rel="noreferrer">documentation</a>, it seems clear that the <code>real</code> and <code>double precision</code> number types support both positive and negative infinity. However, no mention is made for the <code>numeric</code> type, except that the <code>range</code> has "no limit". </p>
  
  <p>Are positive and negative infinity supported for <code>numeric</code> types (in PostgreSQL 9.5), and if so, how does one insert such values?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT (as suggested by @TimBiegeleisen):
  The reason this came about is because I am trying to write a numeric column from <code>R</code> to a database table. The column contains <code>Inf</code> values, but using <code>dbWriteTable</code> from <code>RPostgreSQL</code> errors with:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Error in postgresqlgetResult(new.con) : 
    RS-DBI driver: (could not Retrieve the result : 
  ERROR:  invalid input syntax for type numeric: "Inf"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In my particular case I can convert <code>Inf</code> to <code>NA</code> and write these values as <code>NULL</code>, but this doesn't work when the column contains missing values, or the <code>not null</code>  condition is imposed in the database. I suppose another thing to do would be to write an arbitrarily large number.</p>