On 27.03.2014 01:16, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > py> divmod(30, 24) > (1, 6) > > That makes perfect intuitive sense: 30 hours is 1 day with 6 hours > remaining. In human-speak, we'll say that regardless of whether the > timedelta is positive or negative: we'll say "1 day and 6 hours from now" > or "1 day and 6 hours ago". But when we specify the sign: > > py> divmod(-30, 24) > (-2, 18) > > If an event happened 30 hours ago, it is correct to say that it occurred > "18 hours after 2 days ago", but who talks that way?
Well, no matter how timedeltas internal representation is and if they use modular division or (they probably do, I agree) this shouldn't affect the display at all. Internally they can use any arbitrary representation, but for the external representation I think a very sane requirement should be that for a given timedelta t with t > 0 it is its string representation str(t) would satisfy: "-" + str(t) == str(-t) Besides, there's an infinite amount of (braindead) timedelta string representations. For your -30 hours, it is perfectly legal to say 123 days, -2982 hours Yet Python doesn't (but chooses an equally braindead representation). Where can I enter a PIP that proposes that all timedelta strings are fixed at 123 days (for positive, non-prime amount of seconds) and fixed at -234 days (for all negative or positive prime amount of seconds)? Cheers, Johannes -- >> Wo hattest Du das Beben nochmal GENAU vorhergesagt? > Zumindest nicht öffentlich! Ah, der neueste und bis heute genialste Streich unsere großen Kosmologen: Die Geheim-Vorhersage. - Karl Kaos über Rüdiger Thomas in dsa <hidbv3$om2$1...@speranza.aioe.org> -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
