On 15 Jan 2006 21:14:33 -0800 "Dan Bishop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > although I personally would prefer > > (number) > / \ > (realnumber) complex > | | | > int float | > | > Decimal
Mathematically, "real numbers" are a subset of "complex numbers", though, so the set hierarchy would look like this: "number" | complex | "real" | "rational" | +-----, | | float decimal | | +-----' | int Noting of course that "real" and "number" are only abstract concepts -- they can't truly be represented on the computer. AFAIK, there is no general purpose "rational" type in Python, but there could be. I'm bothered by the fact that "int" can be coerced into either "decimal" or "float". In practice, you should have to choose one or the other. Practically speaking, it probably makes more sense to do this: "number" | complex | "real" | float | decimal | int Because, in general, it is safer (no info loss) to convert "int" to "decimal" where possible. OTOH, for scientific or other performance-critical applications, the exactitude of 'decimal' is less desireable than the known precision and higher speed of float implementations. I suspect this is the sort of decision that was viewed as "too tricky". -- Terry Hancock ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
