[Python-Dev] Re: Decimal type question [Prothon] (original) (raw)

Mark Hahn mark at prothon.org
Mon Aug 9 19:29:59 CEST 2004

Forgive me if I'm being a pest, but no one has commented on the real reason I asked the question. What does everyone think of the idea of having these three built-in numeric types?

  1. An Int implemented with infinite precision integer (Python Longs) with the constant/str form of +-NN such as 0, -123, 173_394, etc.

  2. A Decimal implemented with the .Net decimal float (or the IBM decimal if the .Net decimal sucks too much) with the constant/str form of +-NN.NN such as 0.0, -123.0, 173_394.0, 173394.912786765, etc.

  3. A binary Float implemented with the hardware floating point with the constant/str form of +-NN.NN+-eNN such as 0e0, -123e0, 173.39e+3, 2.35e-78, etc.

There would be no automatic conversion except the / operator would convert from Int to Decimal and the Math module would convert Int and Decimal values to Float for almost all functions (except simple ones like abs, min, max).

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