Steven D'Aprano wrote: > Perhaps you meant to write (-1)**0.5, in which case Python developers have > a decision to make: should it assume real-valued maths unless explicitly > told differently, and hence raise an exception, or coerce the result to > complex? > > In this case, Python raises an exception, as it should, unless you > explicitly uses complex numbers. That's the best behaviour for the > majority of people: most people don't even know what complex numbers are, > let alone want to deal with them in their code. Python, after all, is not > Mathematica.
Note that cmath.sqrt returns the expected complex result for cmath.sqrt(-1.0). -- Erik Max Francis && [EMAIL PROTECTED] && http://www.alcyone.com/max/ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis Our purpose is to make the agony of decision-making so intense that you can escape only by thinking. -- Fred W. Friendly -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
