Splitting numeric litterals

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:49:21 +0100, MRAB wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> In message <mailman.749.1279159335.1673.python-list at python.org>, MRAB
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Normally it's only string literals that could be so long that you
>>> might want to split them over several lines. It is somewhat unusual to
>>> have a _numeric_ literal that's very very long!
>> 
>> Seems a peculiar assumption to make in a language that allows integers
>> of arbitrary length, does it not?
> 
> What's the recommended maximum line length in Python? 80 characters? If
> you take into account indentation, etc, that's still a long integer. And
> it's still only the _recommended_ maximum.

Not only that, but it only takes 73 digits to write out the total number 
of particles in the entire universe:

1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 

or 1e72. (Of course that's the lower-bound, estimates range from 1e72 all 
the way up to 1e87.) So for anything related to counting or labelling 
actual, physical objects, you will be dealing with smaller numbers than 
that. E.g. the number of grains of sand on the earth has been estimated 
(very roughly) as a mere 1000000000000000000000000, or 25 digits.

It always makes me laugh when I receive an invoice from some company, and 
the account number or invoice number is (e.g.) 1000000023456789. Who do 
they think they're fooling? 

-- 
Steven