smallest float number

[Mel Wilson]

In article <mailman.1045099124.29977.python-list at python.org>,
gabor <gabor at z10n.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 01:53, jepler at unpythonic.net wrote:
>> You may want to avoid the question entirely.  Python has a builtin min()
>> function, so if you want to find the biggest item of a group, you simply
>> write
>
>thanks to all for the valuable comments,
>at the end i chose the abovementioned approach : i avoided it completely
>...min() worked nicely :))

Despite that,


    i, j = -1.0, 0.0
    while i != j:
        i, j = i*2.0, i
        print i


prints -8.98846567431e+307 just before it tops out at
-1.#INF (on my machine.)


            Regards.    Mel.