Prothon vs. Python integers

Heather Coppersmith me at privacy.net
Tue May 25 07:02:09 EDT 2004


On 24 May 2004 23:49:42 -0700,
danb_83 at yahoo.com (Dan Bishop) wrote:

> Heather Coppersmith <me at privacy.net> wrote in message news:<m2k6z1ejcc.fsf at unique.phony.fqdn>...

>> Accountants ("bean counters," in the derogatory vernacular)
>> will be displeased if Prothon silently loses pennies (or other
>> small- valued currencies) after a certain amount

> Or credit card numbers.  They're 16 digits long, and Microsoft
> Excel has this inconvenient feature of displaying them with 15
> significant digits.

Credit card numbers aren't integers, though; they just look like
integers (modulo the internal spaces) when you print them out (not
unlike U.S. postal codes, which consist of five or nine digits).
Excel overzealously converts all such entries to mathematical
objects.  What does it mean, for example, to multiply your credit
card number by three?

Regards,
Heather

-- 
Heather Coppersmith
That's not right; that's not even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli



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