[Python-Dev] math.areclose ...?
Georg Brandl
g.brandl at gmx.net
Sun Feb 5 19:02:34 CET 2006
Alex Martelli wrote:
> When teaching some programming to total newbies, a common frustration
> is how to explain why a==b is False when a and b are floats computed
> by different routes which ``should'' give the same results (if
> arithmetic had infinite precision). Decimals can help, but another
> approach I've found useful is embodied in Numeric.allclose(a,b) --
> which returns True if all items of the arrays are ``close'' (equal to
> within certain absolute and relative tolerances):
>
> >>> (1.0/3.0)==(0.1/0.3)
> False
> >>> Numeric.allclose(1.0/3.0, 0.1/0.3)
> 1
>
> 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)
>
> What do y'all think...?
atol sounds suspicious to me, but otherwise fine.
Georg
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