[ python-Bugs-1084279 ] status of small floats in xml-rpc ?

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Bugs item #1084279, was opened at 2004-12-13 11:07
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Category: Python Library
Group: Python 2.4
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Antoine Pitrou (pitrou)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: status of small floats in xml-rpc ?

Initial Comment:
Hi,

I've been reading through the xmlrpclib.py code to see
that floats are marshalled the following way:

    def dump_double(self, value, write):
        write("<value><double>")
        write(repr(value))
        write("</double></value>\n")
    dispatch[FloatType] = dump_double

Using repr() means that small or big floats, for
example, will be output using the exponent notation:
>>> repr(2**-15)
'3.0517578125e-05'

Unfortunately, the XML-RPC specification does not allow
this notation:
"At this time, only decimal point notation is allowed,
a plus or a minus, followed by any number of numeric
characters, followed by a period and any number of
numeric characters. Whitespace is not allowed. The
range of allowable values is implementation-dependent,
is not specified."
(http://www.xmlrpc.com/spec)

Thus floats marshalled using xmlrpclib may not be
readable using other XML-RPC implementations.

(I don't have any concrete data about this though)


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