On Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:13:27 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >> For Python 2.7/3.1 I'd now like to write a PEP regarding the >> underscores into the number literals, like: 0b_0101_1111, 268_435_456 >> etc. > > +1 on such a capability. > > -1 on underscore as the separator. > > When you proposed this last year, the counter-proposal was made > <URL:http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/ msg/18123d100bba63b8?dmode=source> > to instead use white space for the separator, exactly as one can now do > with string literals. > > I don't see any good reason (other than your familiarity with the D > language) to use underscores for this purpose, and much more reason > (readability, consistency, fewer arbitrary differences in syntax, > perhaps simpler implementation) to use whitespace just as with string > literals.
At the risk of bike-shedding, I think that allowing arbitrary whitespace between string literals is fine, because it aids readability to write this: do_something( "first part of the string" "another part of the string" "yet more of the string" "and a bit more" "and so on..." ) but I'm not sure that it is desirable to allow this: do_something( 142325 93.8012 7113 ) -1/2 on arbitrary whitespace, +1/2 on a single space, and +0 on underscores. If semi-colons didn't already have a use, I'd propose using them to break up numeric literals: 14;232;593.801;271;13 -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list