[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Number format in IDE

[Christopher Smith]

>>Is there any way to change the default number format in the IDE? It is
>>disturbing to show students x=5.1, x+2=7.00000000000000000000012 or some
>>such thing. Is it possible to set the default number of decimal places to
>>something like 4, so that things look nicer when using Python as a
>>calculator?

>Hmm... I obtain the following results which show that STR() is 
>a kinder presenter than `...` when it comes to showing the numbers.
>If the IDE could be made to use STR instead of REPR maybe this would 
>help.  I don't know how to do that, however. 
>
>>>> 5.1+2
>7.0999999999999996
>>>> print str(5.1+2)
>7.1
>>>> print `5.1+2`
>7.0999999999999996
>>>> 

OK, so the fix is to explicitly "print" what you want to see
rather than letting Python show you the result:

Python 2.1.1 (#97, Aug  2 2001, 21:53:31)  [CW PPC GUSI2 THREADS]
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> x=5.1
>>> y=2
>>> print x+y  #this is the explicit print and it looks nice
7.1
>>> x+y  #this is NOT an explicit print and is ugly as you note
7.0999999999999996


/c