[Python-ideas] float('∞')=float('inf')

[Joshua Landau]

On 12 July 2013 14:43, Laurens Van Houtven <_ at lvh.io> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 3:21 PM, Gerald Britton <gerald.britton at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> >> Do you have the infinity symbol on your keyboard?  I don't!.
>> >>
>>
>> >Why does what you have on your keyboard matter? Just because the example
>> >uses a string literal, doesn't mean that's the only use case. I can pass
>> >infinity symbols along in any text medium.
>>
>> Ummm...cause that's what I use when programming?
>
>
> My point is that this doesn't have to come from source code. It can come
> from any kind of user input, which is the more common use case for calling
> float or int in the first place. If you just wanted the number, you'd just
> type the literal. (Infinity, of course, is a little special, since it
> doesn't have a literal -- just float("inf")).

I'd try phrasing it as the same sort of thing as what caused the
internationalisation aspect to what float and int can receive -- they
now accept foreign numbers:

>>> float("߂߃߄")
234.0

Consider also that float accepts "infinity" as well as "inf", and any
variant of capitalization. I think it's reasonable that unicode
infinity is allowed.

However, we don't take all forms of negative symbols or decimal
points, so it's not like anything goes.