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Monday, April 1, 2013

long integers and float numbers in python

lecture 5 of MIT open course on python http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-fall-2008/video-lectures/lecture-5/

in python shell, type:

>>> 2**999
5357543035931336604742125245300009052807024058527668037218751941851755255624680612465991894078479290637973364587765734125935726428461570217992288787349287401967283887412115492710537302531185570938977091076523237491790970633699383779582771973038531457285598238843271083830214915826312193418602834034688L

notice that at the end, there is a mysterious L, it just means that it is a long integer( python's internal long format)

>>>2**1000

5357543035931336604742125245300009052807024058527668037218751941851755255624680612465991894078479290637973364587765734125935726428461570217992288787349287401967283887412115492710537302531185570938977091076523237491790970633699383779582771973038531457285598238843271083830214915826312193418602834034688L


what happens if 2**1000 is divided by 2**999?
>>> a= 2**999
>>> b= 2**1000
>>> b/a
2L

L stays with 2.


float number

>>> s=0
>>> for i in range(10):
            s+=0.1

>>> s
0.9999999999999999

it is not 1! 
it has to do with the ieee 754 standard to store numbers in computer

>>> print s
1.0 

print statement round it to 1.

another example:
>>> import math
>>> a=math.sqrt(2)
>>>a
1.4142135623730951

>>> a*a==2
False

in fact
>>> a*a
2.0000000000000004

so, never test  a float number == some other number

usually test :
abs(a*a-2.0) < epsilon
where epsilon is a given small number









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