[Tutor] Meaning of %g ?

[Alan Gauld]

>>> Hopefully those examples show whats happening.
>>> I have no idea why %g is dropping a digit, it may even be a bug!
>>
>> It looks to me like either a documentation error or a bug. It might be 
>> worth asking on c.l.py.
>
> Which I did; see here for Fredrik Lundh's answer:
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/f8dca0d28c426d48?hl=en&

Hmm, that says there is allowed to be a difference but not why there is a 
difference.

The quote from the C standard would allow both e,f and g to have the same 
precision.

In the original K&R(pre ANSI) it simply says %g is the shorter of %f and %e 
with
no hint of any other modification. Given that the logical implementation for 
%g
would be to use %e/%f format as required but for some odd reason its been
implemented differently.

So its not really a bug, since the spac allows for it, but is still strange 
behaviour

Thanks for asking the question Kent, I was going to get around to it
sometime! :-)

IMHO.

Alan G.