curious problem with large numbers

[Steve Holden]

Scott David Daniels wrote:
> Terry Reedy wrote:
> 
>> On my Windows machine with 2.2.1, I get exactly what you expected:
>>
>>>>> 1e10000
>>
>> 1.#INF
>> ...
>> If you get wrong behavior on a later version, then a bug has been 
>> introduced somewhere, even perhaps in VC 7, used for 2.4.
> 
> 
> Nope, it is also there for 2.3.4 (May 25 2004, 21:17:02).  This is not
> necessarily a bug in the sense of a fixable bug; floating point has
> vagaries that are not necessarily easily controllable from the C source
> side.

While this may be true, it's pretty strange that Michael Spencer reports 
apparently correct results on Windows 2.3.3 and 2.4, and I confirm the 
Windows 2.4 result on my own system, while you report that 2.3.4 gives 
an error. Or isn't that what you are reporting?

A further Windows data point from Cygwin:

Python 2.4 (#1, Dec  4 2004, 20:10:33)
[GCC 3.3.3 (cygwin special)] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> 1e10000
Inf
  >>>

regards
  Steve
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