[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic money type to the standard library (original) (raw)

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 22:06:15 +0100

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> > > I propose adding an "abstract" money base type to the standard > > > library, to be subclassed by real money/decimal implementations. > > > > Why do we need this? I guess that would be Question #1... > > For databases ?! The DB API has long had a monetary or at least > decimal type on its plate... never got around to implementing > one, though :-) I can only find one reference to money or decimal in the DB API PEP, and that's as a future task. I guess that's what you mean by "on its plate".

Exactly :-)

Since I'm not a database expert, maybe you can explain the use of this in more detail? And why would we need a monetary type rather than a fixed-point decimal type?

A decimal would do as well, I suppose, at least in terms of storing the raw value. The reason for trying to come up with a monetary type is to make operations between monetary values having two different currencies illegal. Coercion between two of those would always have to be made explicit (for obvious reasons).

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