Engineering numerical format PEP discussion

[Chris Rebert]

On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 9:42 PM, Keith <keith.brafford at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 26, 12:02 am, Chris Rebert <c... at rebertia.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 8:36 PM, Keith <keith.braff... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I am considering writing a PEP for the inclusion of an engineering
>> > format specifier, and would appreciate input from others.
>  snip
>> Relevant related information:
>> The Decimal datatype supports engineering format directly:http://docs.python.org/library/decimal.html#decimal.Decimal.to_eng_st...
>
> Thanks for pointing that out.  Does the engineering community get by
> with the decimal module?
>
> Even though this uses the to_eng_string() function, and even though I
> am using the decimal.Context class:
>
>>>> c = decimal.Context(prec=5)
>>>> decimal.Decimal(1234567).to_eng_string(c)
> '1234567'
>
> That is not an engineering notation string.

Apparently either you and the General Decimal Arithmetic spec differ
on what constitutes engineering notation, there's a bug in the Python
decimal library, or you're hitting some obscure part of the spec's
definition. I don't have the expertise to know which is the case.

The spec: http://speleotrove.com/decimal/decarith.pdf
(to-engineering-string is on page 20 if you're interested)

Cheers,
Chris
--
http://blog.rebertia.com