Floating point (in)accuracy?

[Grant Edwards]

In article <mailman.988227064.4196.python-list at python.org>, Tim Peters wrote:
>[Grant Edwards]
>> I presume that on typical platforms, it can't be guaranteed
>> that float(repr(x)) == x.
>
>On IEEE-754 platforms whose C I/O libraries meet the minimal IEEE-754
>accuracy requirements for float<->string conversions, it is in fact
>guaranteed that
>
>    float(repr(x)) == x

It certainly seems to be true on RH6.2 on an AMD K6-2. The
level of compliance in Unix systems' floating point support 
seems to have improved a lot in the last 10 years.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  My NOSE is NUMB!
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