Steve Holden wrote: [...]
Personally I wouldn't even be interested in seeing 1.3407807929942597e+154 written in fixed point form *in decimal*, let alone in binary where the representation, though unambiguous, would have over 500 bits, most of them zeros.
Well, shot myself in the foot there of course, since the number I meant was actually 2.0 ** 512 (or 13407807929942597099574024998205846127479365820592393377723561443721764030073546 976801874298166903427690031858186486050853753882811946569946433649006084096.0) rather than the decimal approximation above. But I'm sure you get the point that fixed-point representations aren't always appropriate. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC www.holdenweb.com PyCon TX 2006 www.python.org/pycon/