[issue33073] Add as_integer_ratio() to int() objects

[Mark Dickinson]

Mark Dickinson <dickinsm at gmail.com> added the comment:

[Tim]

> [...] what would _you_ like to see done here?

Given that float.as_integer_ratio and Decimal.as_integer_ratio already exist, and that I don't have a working time machine right now, I'm in favour of adding int.as_integer_ratio purely for duck-typing reasons: I want to be able to use an int where a float is expected, and I _have_ encountered code in the past where I have to think too hard about what precise types are being used, and where that thinking seems as though it shouldn't be necessary. For the same reason, I'd support as_integer_ratio on the Fraction type. I don't really care whether it gets there via the Rational ABC or not. Adding as_integer_ratio to Rational as an @abstractmethod _does_ seem a step too far (because now anyone who registers a type with numbers.Integral or numbers.Rational has to implement as_integer_ratio), but my understanding is that that's not what's being proposed.

It doesn't bother me that the NumPy integer types won't support as_integer_ratio immediately (or possibly ever). The floating-point types don't either (except np.float64, which only has it because it inherits directly from Python's float), and it's hard to see how as_integer_ratio could be useful for a NumPy float32 array (for example), given that the returned numerator and denominator could exceed the bounds of any of the fixed-width NumPy integer types. I write a lot of NumPy-using code, but the world in which I do so rarely meets the world where I care about correct rounding, fractions, counting ulps error, etc. I haven't missed float32.as_integer_ratio or float16.as_integer_ratio yet.

If we're worried about NumPy compatibility, it might be interesting to get Nathaniel Smith's opinion.

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nosy: +njs

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<https://bugs.python.org/issue33073>
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