On 1/17/06, M.-A. Lemburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Alex, I think you're missing a point here: what you are looking > for is an interface, not a base class - simply because the
I expect numbers to support arithmetic operators, &c -- no need for basenumber to "spell this out", i.e., "be an itnerface". > If you look at the Python C API, you'll find that "a number" > is actually never tested. There being no way to generically test for "a number", that's unsurprising. > The tests always ask for either > integers or floats. But this doesn't apply to the Python Standard Library, for example see line 1348 of imaplib.py: "if isinstance(date_time, (int, float)):". > The addition of a basenumber base class won't make these any > simpler. Being able to change imaplib to use basenumber instead of (int, float) won't make it SIMPLER, but it will surely make it BETTER -- why should a long be rejected, or a Decimal, for that matter? Similarly, on line 1352 it should use the existing basestring, though it now uses str (this function IS weird -- if it finds date_time to be of an unknown TYPE it raises a *ValueError* rather than a *TypeError* -- ah well). Alex _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
