0001829: accurate floating-point printing

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0001829

OCaml

OCaml general

public

2003-09-14 01:09

2012-01-26 18:30

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administrator

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normal

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feature

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always

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acknowledged

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open

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Summary

0001829: accurate floating-point printing

Description

Full_Name: Wheeler Ruml
Version: 3.06
OS: linux
Submission from: katsura.parc.xerox.com (13.2.18.21)

I see from the mailing list archive
(http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200205/msg00100.html [^]) that it is well-known that
there is no built-in way in OCaml to print a floating-point number accurately
(such that the same number can be recovered from the printed representation).
Xavier may believe that this is justifiable on pragmatic or even philosophical
grounds (http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200205/msg00084.html [^]), but I did want to
point out that it makes life very difficult for advanced users and very
confusing for beginning users. In my case, it means that data structures cannot
be printed to files without either resorting to Marshalling and therefore
abandoning type safety or laboriously truncating all floating point values.
(Floating point values are used as look-up keys in my application.) It would be
very convenient if accurate floating-point printing were built-in! I'm sure
there are more exciting things to work on, but I did want to submit this feature
for your consideration.

Thanks very much,

Wheeler

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2005-11-18 10:13	administrator	New Issue
2012-01-26 18:30	doligez	Relationship added	related to 0001154

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