round function error???

[John Machin]

On Jul 19, 8:05 am, Mark Dickinson <dicki... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 18, 10:17 pm, Anthony <ajdam... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Isn't this a mistake???
>
> Which 'this'?  That is, what were you expecting?
>
> If you're objecting to the fact that the second result
> produces 3499.3499999999999 instead of 3499.35, then
> no, that's not a mistake;  see
>
> http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-are-floating-point-calcula...
>
> for more information.  But I'm guessing that you're
> questioning the fact that a value that's apparently
> *less* than 3499.35 is rounded up to 3499.4, rather
> than down to 3499.3.  ?

"apparently" being the operative word.

>>> x = 3499.35
>>> repr(x)
'3499.3499999999999'
>>> float(repr(x)) == x
True
>>> float(repr(x)) < x
False

>
> Then yes, I'd agree that's less than ideal, though I
> don't consider it a particularly serious bug.
> It's been on my list of things to fix for a while.

I'd suggest adding this to the list of floating point strangenesses in
the FAQ and/or the appendix to the tutorial, rather than "fixing" it.

> (See http://bugs.python.org/issue1869).

The example you give there seems to be somewhat more deserving of a
fix.

Cheers,
John