string formatting: engineering notation

[Steve Holden]

Darren Dale wrote:
> Does anyone know if it is possible to represent a number as a string with
> engineering notation (like scientific notation, but with 10 raised to
> multiples of 3: 120e3, 12e-6, etc.). I know this is possible with the
> decimal.Decimal class, but repeatedly instantiating Decimals is inefficient
> for my application (matplotlib plotting library). If it is not currently
> possible, do you think the python devs would be receptive to including
> support for engineering notation in future releases?
> 
How close is this:

  >>> "%.3e" % 3.14159
'3.142e+00'

regards
  Steve
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