Nasty typo in PEP 238 (revised)

[Bengt Richter]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 17:53:28 GMT, Andrew Koenig <ark at research.att.com> wrote:

>David> In article <cp4rrz5onj.fsf at cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com>,
>David>  Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>
>>> Q. How do I write code that works under the classic rules as well
>>> as under the new rules without using // or a future division
>>> statement?
>
>>> A. Use x*1.0/y for true division, divmod(x, y)[0] for int
>>> division.  Especially the latter is best hidden inside a
>>> function.  You may also write floor(x)/y for true division if
>>> you are sure that you don't expect complex numbers.
>
>David> Shouldn't this be float(x)/y ?
>
>What if x is complex?
>
Why couldn't float apply like a scalar multiply? I.e., do it
to both real and imaginary values separately.

It won't do for abs() and such, but float() is just a numeric
representation control with possible exactness effects.
int() could be viewed that way too. floor() and ceil() could bring
things to integer grid points, if that makes sense.