[ python-Bugs-1289118 ] timedelta multiply and divide by floating point

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Bugs item #1289118, was opened at 2005-09-12 17:41
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by mcherm
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Category: Python Library
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Daniel Stutzbach (agthorr)
Assigned to: Tim Peters (tim_one)
Summary: timedelta multiply and divide by floating point

Initial Comment:
In python 2.4.1, the datetime.timedelta type allows for
the multiplication and division by integers.  However,
it raises a TypeError for multiplication or division by
floating point numbers.  This is a counterintutive
restriction and I can't think of any good reason for it.

For example:

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.timedelta(minutes=5)/2
datetime.timedelta(0, 150)
>>> datetime.timedelta(minutes=5)*0.5
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for *:
'datetime.timedelta' and 'float'


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>Comment By: Michael Chermside (mcherm)
Date: 2005-09-15 12:03

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I, too, would like to know what Tim thinks, but for what it's 
worth (not much) I find Daniel's point fairly convincing... 
multiplication by floats is an operation that makes sense, has 
only one possible obvious meaning, and is not particularly 
likely to cause errors (the way multiplying Decimal's with 
floats does). So IF it's easy to implement, I say go for it.

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Comment By: Raymond Hettinger (rhettinger)
Date: 2005-09-13 00:11

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Tim, do you prefer the current behavior?

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