[Python-ideas] PEP 485: A Function for testing approximate equality

[Chris Barker]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:40:14 -0800
> Chris Barker <chris.barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> > Expected Uses
> > =============
> >
> > The primary expected use case is various forms of testing -- "are the
> > results computed near what I expect as a result?" This sort of test
> > may or may not be part of a formal unit testing suite.
>
> I don't think the proposal fits the bill. For testing you want a
> function that is both 1) quite rigorous (i.e. checks equality within a
> defined number of ulps) 2)


It depends on what you are testing -- I tried to be explicite that this was
not intended for testing the accuracy of numerical algorithms, for
instance. Rather, it's best use case is testing to see whether you have
introduced a big 'ol bug that completely changed your result -- have you
got in the ballark.

Something similar is in Boost, is in numpy, and n any number of other
places. It is clearly useful. THat doesn't mean it has to go in the stdlib,
but it is useful in many cases.

As for the ulps test -- can you suggest a way to do that, while also
providing a simple definition of tolerance that casual users can understand
and use (and have a reasonable default? I know I can't. Note that some of
the feedback on the PEP as is is that it's too hard to understand already!
(without better docs, anyway)


> handles all special cases in a useful way
> (i.e. zeros, including distinguishing between positive and negative
> zeros, infinities, NaNs etc.).
>

zero, inf, -inf, NaN are all handles, I think correctly. And if -0.0 is not
cloe to 0.0, I dont know what is ;-)

(there is a test to make sure that's true actually)

If you want to make the  distinction between -0.0 and 0.0, then you don't
want a "close" or "approximate" test.


> As someone who wrote such a function for Numba, what you're proposing
> would not be a suitable replacement.
>

I never expected it would be a replacement for what is needed for a project
like numba.

-Chris


-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

Emergency Response Division
NOAA/NOS/OR&R            (206) 526-6959   voice
7600 Sand Point Way NE   (206) 526-6329   fax
Seattle, WA  98115       (206) 526-6317   main reception

Chris.Barker at noaa.gov
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/attachments/20150123/1caef8b4/attachment-0001.html>