[Python-Dev] various unix platform build/test issues

[Tim Peters]

[M.-A. Lemburg]
> Isn't that caveat in the complex implementation ? Converting a
> complex with 0 img part would not cause any loss of information
> (apart from the usual integer truncations ;-)

Hmm.  Have you ever met a coercion you didn't like <0.9 wink>?
float(complex) also raises an exception unconditionally, and I think for
good reasons -- what someone *intends* by trying to convert a complex number
to a float or an int is a mystery.  The exceptions raised suggest one
plausible intent and how to get at it clearly:

>>> float(1+0j)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
TypeError: can't convert complex to float; use e.g. abs(z)
>>>