[Python-Dev] str with base (original) (raw)

Adam Olsen rhamph at gmail.com
Wed Jan 18 03:17:27 CET 2006

On 1/17/06, Bob Ippolito <bob at redivi.com> wrote:

On Jan 17, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Adam Olsen wrote: > I dream of a day when str(3.25, base=2) == '11.01'. That is the > number a float really represents. It would be so much easier to > understand why floats behave the way they do if it were possible to > print them in binary. Actually if you wanted something that closely represents what a floating point number is then you would want to see this:: >>> str(3.25, base=2) '1.101e1' >>> str(0.25, base=2) '1.0e-10' Printing the bits without an exponent is nearly as misleading as printing them in decimal.

I disagree. The exponent is involved in rounding to fit in compact storage but once that is complete the value can be represented exactly without it.

-- Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus

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