[Python-Dev] Re: PEP239 (Rational Numbers) Reference Implementation and new issues (original) (raw)

Oren Tirosh oren-py-d@hishome.net
Thu, 3 Oct 2002 01:28:29 -0400

On Wed, Oct 02, 2002 at 10:16:07PM -0400, Andrew Koenig wrote:

Tim> How many trailing zeroes do you expect to save this way?

The real point is to have small, efficient rational representations for floating-point numbers, even those with large exponents.

But why would you want to convert floating point numbers to rationals in the first place? Floating point numbers are generally inexact. Converting them to exact rationals can give a false sense of exactitude.

Any calculation involving a floating point number should taint the result with inexactitude and yield a floating point result. 

Oren