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Created on 2010-08-03 20:37 by ygale, last changed 2022-04-11 14:57 by admin. This issue is now closed.
| Files | ||||
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| File name | Uploaded | Description | Edit | |
| stdtypes_float_info.patch | ygale, 2010-08-03 20:37 | Add reference to sys.float_info to stdtypes.rst for 3.2 | ||
| stdtypes_float_info_2.patch | ygale, 2010-08-03 21:31 | Corrected patch to add reference to sys.float_info and keep a qualified mention of C doubles. | ||
| Messages (6) | |||
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| msg112670 - (view) | Author: Yitz Gale (ygale) | Date: 2010-08-03 20:37 | |
Library docs section 5.4 "Numeric Types" states about floating point numbers that "all bets on their precision are off unless you happen to know the machine you are working with." That has not been true since Python 2.6, when sys.float_info was added. There should be a reference to that here instead of that statement. In addition, that paragraph mentions that both float and complex are "implemented using double in C". There is no longer any special reason to mention how those are implemented in C, any more than anything else in Python. Everything you need to know about the implementation is in sys.float_info. (Well, almost everything, see #9192.) The attached patch is for the Python 3.2 branch. |
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| msg112671 - (view) | Author: Georg Brandl (georg.brandl) *  |
Date: 2010-08-03 20:39 | |
Mark, does this look ok to you? |
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| msg112674 - (view) | Author: Mark Dickinson (mark.dickinson) * |
Date: 2010-08-03 20:45 | |
+1 for the reference to sys.float_info. I'd prefer to keep the mention of C doubles, though. You have to know what you're looking for to get this information from looking at sys.float_info. |
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| msg112682 - (view) | Author: Yitz Gale (ygale) | Date: 2010-08-03 21:03 | |
It's not necessarily true for other than CPython, and it could theoretically not be true someday on some weird platform even for CPython. How about just adding this: "Floating point numbers are usually implemented using double in C." Then at least we're not committing ourselves to anything. |
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| msg112683 - (view) | Author: Mark Dickinson (mark.dickinson) * |
Date: 2010-08-03 21:06 | |
> it could theoretically not be true someday on some weird platform even for CPython. Granted. Though it would be quite a major change: the 'double' part is heavily hard-coded throughout. > How about just adding this: "Floating point numbers are usually > implemented using double in C." Then at least we're not committing > ourselves to anything. That sounds fine to me. |
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| msg112859 - (view) | Author: Mark Dickinson (mark.dickinson) * |
Date: 2010-08-04 18:49 | |
Thanks! Applied in revisions r83732 through r83734. (The release26-maint branch is frozen except for essential fixes, so not applying it there.) |
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| History | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | User | Action | Args |
| 2022-04-11 14:57:04 | admin | set | github: 53707 |
| 2010-08-04 18:49:59 | mark.dickinson | set | status: open -> closed resolution: accepted messages: + msg112859 versions: - Python 2.6 |
| 2010-08-03 21:31:47 | ygale | set | files: + stdtypes_float_info_2.patch |
| 2010-08-03 21:06:31 | mark.dickinson | set | messages: + msg112683 |
| 2010-08-03 21:03:07 | ygale | set | messages: + msg112682 |
| 2010-08-03 20:45:16 | mark.dickinson | set | messages: + msg112674 |
| 2010-08-03 20:39:27 | georg.brandl | set | assignee: docs@python -> mark.dickinson messages: + msg112671 nosy: + mark.dickinson, georg.brandl |
| 2010-08-03 20:37:32 | ygale | create | |