Message 366294 - Python tracker (original) (raw)

The Imaginary type could help to solve other "gotchas".

Yes, it's an attractive proposition from many angles: e.g., multiplying by 1j could do the correct quarter-turn rotation in the complex plane, keeping all signs correct, so that multiplying a complex number z by 1j 4 times exactly recovers z, regardless of nans, infinities and signed zeros.

C99's specification of (optional) imaginary types was supposed to solve exactly this problem, but it doesn't look as though it received widespread adoption, and I suspect it would have difficult getting traction in Python world, too.

I'll have a PR with a documentation update shortly.