Mark Dickinson <dicki...@gmail.com> added the comment:
Now that I think about it, this could be 'fixed' without breaking compliance:
all the specification requires is that a power function with the specified
behaviour is present *somewhere* in the decimal module; it needn't be linked
to the ** operator. So there could be two versions of power in decimal.py:
one version (called Decimal.power) that strictly conforms to the specification,
and another (Decimal.__pow__) that's identical in every way except that it
returns Decimal('1') for Decimal('0.0')**0.
While we're at it, we could also 'fix' Decimal.__pos__ and Decimal.__neg__
similarly: the standard requires operations 'plus' and 'minus', with the
slightly surprising (to me, at least) properties that plus(-0.0) = 0.0 and
minus(0.0) = 0.0 (for both these, -0.0 seems more natural); but there's no
requirement that Python's __pos__ and __neg__ be identical to these.
But these changes would come with all the usual costs: extra code, tests and
documentation, future maintenance costs, possibility of introducing bugs, user
confusion, possible backwards compatibility issues,... So there would have to
be some significant perceived benefits to outweigh the costs.
Perhaps a discussion on the python-dev mailing list would be in order?
----------
status: pending -> open
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Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue7754>
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