Issue 7469: Design and History FAQ entry on Floating Point does not mention short repr. (original) (raw)

Created on 2009-12-10 11:55 by r.david.murray, last changed 2022-04-11 14:56 by admin. This issue is now closed.

Messages (5)
msg96200 - (view)	Author: R. David Murray (r.david.murray) *	Date: 2009-12-10 11:55
See http://docs.python.org/dev/faq/design.html#why-are-floating-point-calculations-so-inaccurate. The 3.1 version is the same, so it also needs to be updated. The entry links to the tutorial, which has the correct information for 3.1/3.2, but not for trunk.
msg96290 - (view)	Author: Mark Dickinson (mark.dickinson) *	Date: 2009-12-12 11:38
Is there anything actually *wrong* with that FAQ section? I'm not sure how mentioning short float repr would address any particular FAQ. Unless that FAQ is "why do 2.6 and 2.7 give different results?". I agree that the tutorial section for trunk needs updating. I also notice that the FAQs for py3k need to be looked at closely: there are a lot of print statements in there, and doubtless some other 2.x-isms.
msg96292 - (view)	Author: R. David Murray (r.david.murray) *	Date: 2009-12-12 14:26
No, you are right, there's nothing actually inaccurate. It might be good for it to say, about repr, that it prints the "minimum number of digits necessary", which is what is different from the old behavior. But I agree that it doesn't *have* to change.
msg182358 - (view)	Author: R. David Murray (r.david.murray) *	Date: 2013-02-19 01:51
I've reviewed these docs again, and I don't see anything left to update (everything in the current 2.7 tutorial appears to be accurate). I also did a grep on the FAQs, and don't see any prints that are statements, so those must have gotten fixed as part of other issues.
msg182369 - (view)	Author: Mark Dickinson (mark.dickinson) *	Date: 2013-02-19 08:44
Agreed; I think this did all get updated at one point or another.