nikie wrote:
> Let's look at two different examples: Consider the following C# code:
>
> static decimal test() {
> decimal x = 10001;
> x /= 100;
> x -= 100;
> return x;
>
> It returns "0.01", as you would expect it.
Yes, I would expect that because I have defined x as decimal, not int.
> Now, consider the python equivalent:
>
> def test():
> x = 10001
> x /= 100
> x -= 100
> return x
No, that's not the Python equivalent. The equivalent of the line
decimal x = 10001
in Python would be
x = 10001.0
or even:
from decimal import Decimal
x = Decimal(10001)
Setting x = 10001 would be equivalent to the C# code
int x = 10001
> It returns "0". Clearly an error!
That's not clearly an error. If you set int x = 10001 in C#, then you
also get a "0". By setting x to be an integer, you are implicitely
telling Python that you are not interested in fractions, and Python does
what you want. Granted, this is arguable and will be changed in the
__future__, but I would not call that an error.
By the way, the equivalent Python code to your C# program gives on my
machine the very same result:
>>> x = 10001.0; x /= 100; x -= 100; print x
0.01
> Even if you used "from __future__ import division", it would actually
> return "0.010000000000005116", which, depending on the context, may
> still be an intolerable error.
With from __future__ import division, I also get 0.01 printed. Anyway,
if there are small discrepancies then these have nothing to do with
Python but rather with the underlying floating-point hardware and C
library, the way how you print the value and the fact that 0.01 can
principally not be stored exactly as a float (nor as a C# decimal), only
as a Python Decimal.
> I can even think of an example where C's (and Java's) bounded ints are
> the right choice, while Python's arbitraty-precision math isn't:
> Assume you get two 32-bit integers containing two time values (or
> values from an incremental encoder, or counter values). How do you
> find out how many timer ticks (or increments, or counts) have occured
> between those two values, and which one was earlier? In C, you can
> just write:
>
> long Distance(long t1, long t0) { return t1-t0; }
>
> And all the wraparound cases will be handled correctly (assuming there
> have been less than 2^31 timer ticks between these two time values).
> "Distance" will return a positive value if t1 was measured after t0, a
> negative value otherwise, even if there's been a wraparound in
> between. Try the same in Python and tell me which version is simpler!
First of all, the whole problem only arises because you are using a
statically typed counter ;-) And it only is easy in C when your counter
has 32 bits. But what about a 24 bit counter?
Anyway, in Python, you would first define:
def wrap(x, at=1<<31):
if x < -at:
x += at*2
elif x >= at:
x -= at*2
return x
Then, the Python program would be as simple:
Distance = lambda t1,t0: wrap(t1-t0)
-- Christoph
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