extend methods of decimal module

[Mark H. Harris]

On Thursday, February 27, 2014 8:42:55 AM UTC-6, Oscar Benjamin wrote:

> 
> Some points:

   Thanks so much... you have clarified some things I was struggling with...

> 1) Why have you committed the code as a .tar.gz file?

    um, to save space... well, I know its tiny, but its just a habit I have... 5kb instead of 25kb...


> 2) This function is not such a good idea:
> 
> def D(numform):
>     return Decimal(str(numform))

    The reason for this is not for strings, but for float literals.  All of my functions may take a float literal and things still work, because the D(float) function converts the float literal to a string, which is then passed to the Decimal constructor.    so... this works  sqrt(0.1)  or,  sqrt(2.01)   Without the D() function float literals may not be passed to the Decimal because it really cannot handle them...  0.1  and others cause it a fit...    is there another way to do what I'm looking for here..?


> 3) In many places you've written code like this:
> 
>     prec=dscale(getcontext().prec +7)
>     sqr = (D(x).sqrt()).__round__(prec)
>     retscale=dscale(prec)

 
 
> The preferred way is: 
>     with localcontext() as ctx:
>         ctx.prec += 7
>         sqr = round(D(x).sqrt(), prec)

    Thanks...   
 
> i.e. use a context manager to restore the context even if an error 
> occurs and use the round builtin rather than the dunder method.

     This has confused me, because when I look into the module help text I don't see roun() all I see is 
    __round__(...)     how do I know when the   round()  method exists vs.  __round__(...)  ??


> 4) You shouldn't be using round/__round__ for precision rounding: it
> uses decimal places rather than significant figures. If you want to
> round to context precision just use unary +. i.e.:

>     return +sqr

      whoohoo!   thank you.


> 5) The Decimal.sqrt method already rounds to context precision.
> There's no need to compute in higher precision and then round it
> yourself (in fact you're invalidating the correctness of the rounding
> by double-rounding like this). So really it's just:

>     def sqrt(x):
>         return Decimal(x).sqrt()

     ok...
> 
> 6) You should organise it in such a way that you're not progressively
> increasing the precision each time one function calls another.

     right... well,  and if you look at the calls to my  __atan__  funcs I am assuming that they are still in the context of the calling func  atan()....    right...?   so no need to even have the bump up in prec there.

> 
> Oscar


thanks Oscar, I really appreciate your comments

marcus