Hi, On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I realize it is probably too late to do anything about this, but:

In [72]: info = np.finfo(np.float32)

In [73]: info.minexp Out[73]: -126

In [74]: info.maxexp Out[74]: 128

minexp is correct, in that 2**(-126) is the minimum value for the exponent part of float32.  But maxexp is not correct, because 2**(127) is the maximum value for the float32 exponent part:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_precision_floating-point_format

There is the same maxexp+1 feature for the other float types.

Is this a sufficiently quiet corner of the API that it might be changed in the future with suitable warnings?

Ah - I just found this: http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.MachAr.html#numpy.... which explains that: maxexp int Smallest (positive) power of ibeta that causes overflow. which is - unpleasantly named, but at least, clearly documented - if not at the point of use. When I've got better internet access, I'll try and modify the finfo docstring to explain. See you, Matthew