Why is Dataset upset by division by zero?

Question

Consider this example:

ds = Dataset @ Transpose[<|"a" -> {1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1}, "b" -> {6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0}|>,
                         AllowedHeads -> All]

Now say I need to work with the ratios of these two values. This works fine:

ds[;;-2, #a/#b &]

But this fails:

ds[All, #a/#b &]

It would be easier for me to just get a result with some ComplexInfinities. Does the operation fail by desgin or oversight? Is there a workaround? Should I just use

ds[All, Quiet[#a/#b] &]

all the time or is there a more general solution? Off[General::infy] doesn't prevent this from failing, though the failure message can't be displayed properly.

Answer 1

One possible solution is using Quiet:

ds[All, Quiet[#a/#b]&]

Another possible solution is using the FailureAction option:

ds[All, #a/#b, FailureAction -> None]