New submission from abcdef x@mailinator.com:

Documentation of the numbers module: https://docs.python.org/3/library/numbers.html states "None of the types defined in this module can be instantiated."

This is true for Complex, Real, Rational, Integral but not for Number:

...

...

numbers.Number()

<numbers.Number object at 0x7fcccc71f3c0>

...

...

numbers.Real()

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: Can't instantiate abstract class Real...

Since Number doesn't have any abstract methods, the correct fix seems to be changing the documentation. I would try to convey something like this:

"The types defined in this module can be used for subclassing and checking whether a specific class is in the numeric hierarchy; they are not used directly for instantiation. For this, you can use types such as `complex` or `fractions.Fraction`".

---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 306970 nosy: abcdef, docs@python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: documentation: numbers module nitpick type: enhancement versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.6

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