[Python-ideas] PEP 485: A Function for testing approximate equality

[Chris Barker]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

> By now can't you summarize the reasons that others have brought up?
>
>>
>>
I can try ;-) --probably not until this evening though.

 > Because we want it to be able to do something sane when comparing to
zero --

<snip>

I don't think you can have this always be sane. For someone who for
> whatever reason is manipulating quantities that are in the range of 1e-100,
> 1e-12 is about as large as infinity.
>

Exactly why I favor having the abs_tolerance default to zero.



> I think my reasoning comes down to the same rule I often use to decide
> whether we need one function or two -- if in every use case you always know
> whether you need version A or version B, then it's better to have two
> functions rather than a single one with a flag to request A or B.
>
> And isn't it the case that whenever you are comparing to zero, you *know*
> that you are comparing to zero, and you *must* specify an absolute
> tolerance (otherwise it's not a use case at all)?
>

I really appreciate this API design approach, and in this case I started
out with that idea. But I think this is likely to be used where you need to
test a bunch of values with single function/set of parameters. In
TestCase.assertIsCloseTo, as well as home grown loops and comprehensions.

IIUC, numpy doesn't design APIs this way.
>

I'm not sure numpy's API is exactly designed at all ;-)

-Chris

-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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