Message80062
The documentation for random.uniform says that random.uniform(a,b)
should return a number strictly less than b, assuming a<b. (The result
should be strictly less than a if a>b.) Thus both of the following
expressions should always evaluate to False:
a<b and b in [random.uniform(a,b) for i in range(20)]
a<b and b in [random.uniform(b,a) for i in range(20)]
Yet both of them evaluate to True (except, presumably, one time in a
million) after doing the following assignments:
a = 1.0
b = 1.0 + 2.0**-52
Other values of a and b also exist for which random.uniform will
sometimes return its upper limit. (For example, the -52 can be
increased to -51, -50, etc., with correspondingly less frequent
violations of the spec.)
Because this is a case where the code is violating an explicit
specification in the documentation, I'm reporting it as a behavior bug.
But perhaps the behavior is as intended and the documentation is at
fault. For that reason, I'm also emailing docs@python.org.
The documentation would in any case need a little touching up, in that
it has a self-contradictory specification for the case where a=b. There
is no value N for which a<=N<b, given a=b. That minor touch-up could be
combined with allowing the behavior described in this bug report, if
that behavior is in fact desired. |
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Date |
User |
Action |
Args |
2009-01-18 00:03:18 | hailperin | set | recipients:
+ hailperin |
2009-01-18 00:03:18 | hailperin | set | messageid: <1232236998.05.0.906555449746.issue4979@psf.upfronthosting.co.za> |
2009-01-18 00:03:17 | hailperin | link | issue4979 messages |
2009-01-18 00:03:15 | hailperin | create | |
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