Hello,
repr(0.1) is '0.100000000000 00001', in my Python 2.3.
From reading the article "Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and
Limitations", I understand that it's the closest 17-digit decimal
representation of the binary floating-point number actually stored.
However, I don't understand why this should be what repr of floats
returns. repr should, if possible, return a string that evaluating it
will be == to the original object. But eval("0.1") obviously returns the
same floating point as 0.1 does! So why not make repr of floats return
the *shortest* decimal representation that will evaluate to the stored
binary number? Specifically, why not make repr(0.1) be "0.1"?
Thanks,
Noam Raphael
repr(0.1) is '0.100000000000 00001', in my Python 2.3.
From reading the article "Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and
Limitations", I understand that it's the closest 17-digit decimal
representation of the binary floating-point number actually stored.
However, I don't understand why this should be what repr of floats
returns. repr should, if possible, return a string that evaluating it
will be == to the original object. But eval("0.1") obviously returns the
same floating point as 0.1 does! So why not make repr of floats return
the *shortest* decimal representation that will evaluate to the stored
binary number? Specifically, why not make repr(0.1) be "0.1"?
Thanks,
Noam Raphael
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