[Python-Dev] return type of complex (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Sun Oct 21 17:36:45 CEST 2012

On 10/21/2012 8:23 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Greg Ewing writes: > Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > > It's a design bug, yes. The question is, does it conform to > > documented behavior? > > The 2.7 docs say this about complex: > > Called to implement the built-in function complex() ... > Should return a value of the appropriate type.

I would take that as meaning complex or subclass thereof or whatever is consistent with float() and int().

> > So the question is whether float is an "appropriate type" when > you're expecting a complex.

I probably not say that, but even so my personal taste would be to fix the docs to describe the current behavior in 2.7. Evidently somebody thought "float" was appropriate, or they would have just written "Returns a complex value." Stability is more important than catering to my taste (even if it happens to represent a majority in some sense).

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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