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string->number

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 70 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 70 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



 | From: Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@xxxxxxxxxx>
 | Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 09:16:37 -0700
 | 
 | Aubrey Jaffer <agj@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
 | 
 | > To first order:
 | >
 | >   (define (precision-of x) (string-length (number->string x)))
 | >
 | > R5RS requires all numbers to have external representations; and it
 | > specifies the allowed formats.
 | 
 | What?  number->string does not specify the allowed formats for
 | exact numbers, only for inexact (and only for some inexact numbers

Yes, I should have written "inexact numbers".

 | at that).  This isn't an accident; it was done specifically for
 | just this reason, to allow for different representations.  See the
 | Rationale:
 | 
 | "The unspecified case allows for infinities, NaNs, and non-flonum
 | representations."
 | 
 | So if X is an exact version of sqrt 2, it's perfectly fine for
 | number->string to return anything that string->number can
 | understand.

Can number->string return a string which can't be READ as a number?

I had thought that 6.2.4 "Syntax of numerical constants" and 7.1.1
"Lexical structure" applied to the results of NUMBER->STRING.  If they
are independent, a note about that should be added to the report.