[Python-Dev] Floating-point implementations (original) (raw)

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Wed Dec 10 16:46:55 CET 2008

Lie Ryan wrote:

On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:15:53 -0500, Steve Holden wrote:

Is anyone aware of any implementations that use other than 64-bit floating-point? I'd be particularly interested in any that use greater precision than the usual 56-bit mantissa. Do modern 64-bit systems implement anything wider than the normal double?

regards Steve Why don't we create a DecimalFloat datatype which is a variable-width floating point number. Decimal is variable precision fixed-point number, while the plain ol' float would be system dependent floating point. Because it's a large amount of work? For a limited return ... the implementation is bound to be hugely slow compared with hardware floating point, and as Martin already pointed out gmpy provides higher-precision arithmetic where required, and the Decimal module provides arbitrary-range fixed-point arithmetic.

regards Steve

Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/

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