printing anomaly

[Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy)]

Paul Rubin wrote:

> What's the deal with this?
> 
>     >>> print 3.2
>     3.2
>     >>> print [3.2]
>     [3.2000000000000002]
>     >>>
> 
> Yes, I know that 3.2 isn't an exact binary fraction.  I'm wondering
> why it's converted differently depending on whether it's in a list.

`print 3.2` == `print str(3.2)`.
`print [3.2]` == `print str([3.2])`.

list.str calls repr() on all elements. Partly, this is so that:

>>> print [3.2]
>>> print ['3.2']

don't have the same output. Otherwise, how could you tell (visually) if
an element was a string or a float (or integer, or whatever)?

Tim Delaney