[Python-3000] PEP 3101 suggested corrections (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Sat Oct 27 00:06:32 CEST 2007

Chris Monson wrote:

'd' - Decimal Integer. Outputs the number in base 10.

Modern C now has 'i' as an alternative to 'd'

Considering that in printf formats the alternatives to 'd' or 'i' are 'x' for hexadecimal and 'o' for octal, then 'd' for decimal makes a lot more sense to me than 'i', which says nothing about the base in which it will be displayed.

It makes even more sense in Python, where the format codes are clearly all about the display format and nothing to do with the type of data (whereas the distinction is somewhat blurred in C).

most people expect decimals to have fractional parts).

Then their expectations require adjustment. "Decimal" means "base 10". On its own it doesn't imply anything about fractions.

-- Greg

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