> From: Martin D Kealey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 18 Nov 2002 11:50:14 +1300 > > On Sat, 2002-11-16 at 07:37, Michael Lazzaro wrote: > > Due to ambiguities, the proposal to allow floating point in bases other > > than 10 is therefore squished. If anyone still wants it, we can ask > > the design team to provide a final ruling. > > > Why are we so hung up on spelling floating-point literals with "E"? > > What about a completely generic number format like: > > [radix:]whole-part[:fractional-part[:exponent[:exponent-radix[:options]]]] > > where whole-part, fractional-part and exponent can each include a sign > and can each use dotted-digit notation, provided that radix is present, > and radix and exponent-radix are written in base-ten. The only useful > option I can think of so far is "loose", meaning that digits can be > larger than the radix. > > I would suggest that exponent-radix should default to the same as radix. > > So > > 10:1.2.3:4.5:6 == 123450000 > 2:1:1:1110 == 0x6000 > 60:22.0.-27::-2 == 21.9925
I've always wanted to meet The Devil. :) Honestly, I can't tell by looking at that what those are supposed to mean. And I'm not putting any numbers that ugly into my Perl soup. Perl 6 is trying to I<decrease> obfuscation. My opinion: don't allow floating point arbitrary radix. It's uncommon enough that it could be done with a module. It would be trivial with a grammar munge. Luke
