Problem with floating point precision

[Arthur]

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:19:50 -0400, "John Roth"
<newsgroups at jhrothjr.com> wrote:

>"j_mckitrick" <j_mckitrick at bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>news:ec6dce8b.0408170538.1f0211d2 at posting.google.com...
>> I checked the docs, but found nothing about floating point issues.
>>
>> I am working on an app that deals with currency values, and only does
>> addition and subtraction (no division).  But I am starting to see
>> values that should be the same failing a compare!  What is the
>> workaround or correct way to compare 2 floats?  It worked fine for
>> months, then suddenly starting acting odd.  I might have upgraded
>> Python somewhere in between, I can't recall.
>
>The basic issue here is that you shouldn't be using floats
>for currency. Granted, lots of people do, but it will eventually
>run into exactly the problem you're describing.
>
>The reason is that currency is best handled by some form of
>arithmetic that works with discrete quantities, while floats are
>intended to be used with continuous quantities (like scientific
>and engineering measurements).
>
>There's a floating decimal package in 2.4 that is intended
>to eventually (in 2.5 maybe?) be the base of a currency
>package. However, that doesn't help today.

@$#,###.##
import decimal

I believe wil be the syntax for getting at it ;)

Art