Adam Olsen wrote: > On 1/17/06, Bob Ippolito <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>On Jan 17, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Adam Olsen wrote: >> >> >>>I dream of a day when str(3.25, base=2) == '11.01'. That is the >>>number a float really represents. It would be so much easier to >>>understand why floats behave the way they do if it were possible to >>>print them in binary. >> >>Actually if you wanted something that closely represents what a >>floating point number is then you would want to see this:: >> >> >>> str(3.25, base=2) >> '1.101e1' >> >>> str(0.25, base=2) >> '1.0e-10' >> >>Printing the bits without an exponent is nearly as misleading as >>printing them in decimal. > > > I disagree. The exponent is involved in rounding to fit in compact > storage but once that is complete the value can be represented exactly > without it. > Albeit with excessively long representations for the larger values one sometimes sees represented in float form.
Personally I wouldn't even be interested in seeing 1.3407807929942597e+154 written in fixed point form *in decimal*, let alone in binary where the representation, though unambiguous, would have over 500 bits, most of them zeros. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/ _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
