[Python-ideas] Float range class

[Andrew Barnert]

On Jan 9, 2015, at 13:24, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 12:58 PM, Andrew Barnert <abarnert at yahoo.com.dmarc.invalid> wrote:
>> [...]
>> arange is actually very easy to get right, but hard to _use_ properly. A half-open range of values from 0 to .9 by .3 is going to include a number just under 0.9 if properly implemented. However you slice it, .3*3<.9, .3+.3+.3<.9, etc., so that number belongs in the range. [...]
> 
> I don't know if this some kind of fp in-joke that I'm missing, but I find that the wording "if properly implemented" comes on a little strong. It depends on behavior of IEEE binary fp that's far from obvious -- I observe that .3*4 > 1.2, for example.

OK, you're right; that isn't really stated well.

If properly implemented _with IEEE binary doubles_, .3*3 < .9. If properly implemented with a _different_ inexact float representation, that one might be fine--and a different one might be trouble.

But regardless, the mistake is not in the implementation of arange, it's in the user's assumption that .3*3 == .9 (or that 0+.3+.3+.3 == .9, or whatever, depending on how the stop was chosen). That may be true or false depending on your FP implementation, and therefore it's a bad assumption. And the fact that the == is inside your brain rather than in your code makes the red flag harder to spot.

Of course you can solve this the same way you solve any FP comparison issue: by picking an appropriate epsilon. For example, given that e << step, you can just count to .6+.15 or .9-.15 and be absolutely sure that something close to .6 will appear but something close to .9 will not. (And similarly for counting backward to 1.2 by .3.)

But rethinking your problem in terms of linspace is much harder to get wrong and requires much less understanding of how FP works.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/attachments/20150109/2f712343/attachment.html>