[Python-Dev] math.areclose ...?
Aahz
aahz at pythoncraft.com
Sun Feb 5 19:01:24 CET 2006
On Sun, Feb 05, 2006, Alex Martelli wrote:
>
> But pulling in the whole of Numeric just to have that one handy
> function is often overkill. So I was wondering if module math (and
> perhaps by symmetry module cmath, too) shouldn't grow a function
> 'areclose' (calling it just 'close' seems likely to engender
> confusion, since 'close' is more often used as a verb than as an
> adjective; maybe some other name would work better, e.g.
> 'almost_equal') taking two float arguments and optional tolerances
> and using roughly the same specs as Numeric, e.g.:
>
> def areclose(x,y,rtol=1.e-5,atol=1.e-8):
> return abs(x-y)<atol+rtol*abs(y)
Looks interesting. I don't quite understand what atol/rtol are, though.
You're right that another name would be better; almost_equal is fine.
--
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
"19. A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming,
is not worth knowing." --Alan Perlis
More information about the Python-Dev
mailing list