[Python-Dev] New math functions

Mark Dickinson dickinsm at gmail.com
Fri Feb 15 14:27:05 CET 2008


On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 1:52 AM, Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> wrote:

> Also, it would be useful to have a new method, float.is_integer().  This
> would be better than the current approach where we make the
> test:  if x == floor(x).
>

How common is this test?  Given the inexact nature of floating-point
arithmetic, checking whether a float is exactly an integer seems like
something that one might actually want to discourage, just like comparing
two floats for equality.

Also, what about having float.is_finite, as a quicker way to spell "not
isinf(x) and not isnan(x)"

+1 on making these methods of float;  they're fundamental properties.

Mark
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