"A.M. Kuchling" <amk@amk.ca> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 01, 2005 at 11:11:37AM -0500, Neal Becker wrote:
complex ('(2+2j)') Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in ? ValueError: complex() arg is a malformed string
Whatever format is used for output should be accepted as input!
This isn't true in general; it's not true of strings, for example, nor of files. Parsing complex numbers would be pretty complicated, because it would have to accept '(2+2j)', '2+2j', '3e-6j', and perhaps even '4j+3'. It seems easier to just use eval() than to make complex() implement an entire mini-parser.
Which brings up the fact that while some things are able to make the eval(str(obj)) loop, more are able to make the eval(repr(obj)) loop (like strings themselves...). - Josiah