new machine : Python calculator
 

120919 Marc Joliet wrote:
> 120918 Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
>> With Python running as interpreter, I would get much more capability,
>> but I would need to enter the special line to load the math functions :
>> is it possible to do it with some capitalised variable in .bashrc ,
>> which might list parameters telling Python3 what to load when it starts ?
>> one of the 'man' files seems to refer to something like that, but briefly.
> 3.) Put the "import" line in its own file and put it in the variable
> PYTHONSTARTUP, e.g. "export PYTHONSTARTUP=/path/to/my/script.py".
> Python executes it's contents before presenting the prompt,
> so you can put whatever imports you want in that script.

Thanks, that's what I saw in my brief glance at the 'man'.
It works out of the box: the only problem is precision,
which at 16 decimal places is a bit more than I usually need (smile).
I can search out how to limit it to something more useful to me,
but might you have a quick answer ? Thanks for the above.

--
========================,,======================== ====================
SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb
ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT `-O----------O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

new machine : Python calculator
 

Am Thu, 20 Sep 2012 05:05:11 -0400
schrieb Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net>:

> 120919 Marc Joliet wrote:
> > 120918 Philip Webb <purslow@ca.inter.net> wrote:
> >> With Python running as interpreter, I would get much more capability,
> >> but I would need to enter the special line to load the math functions :
> >> is it possible to do it with some capitalised variable in .bashrc ,
> >> which might list parameters telling Python3 what to load when it starts ?
> >> one of the 'man' files seems to refer to something like that, but briefly.
> > 3.) Put the "import" line in its own file and put it in the variable
> > PYTHONSTARTUP, e.g. "export PYTHONSTARTUP=/path/to/my/script.py".
> > Python executes it's contents before presenting the prompt,
> > so you can put whatever imports you want in that script.
>
> Thanks, that's what I saw in my brief glance at the 'man'.
> It works out of the box: the only problem is precision,
> which at 16 decimal places is a bit more than I usually need (smile).
> I can search out how to limit it to something more useful to me,
> but might you have a quick answer ? Thanks for the above.

Reading up the "format specification mini language"
(http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#formatspec, and the format syntax
explained above it), you could do as follows, to print as float rounded to four
decimal places:

print('{0:.4f}'.format(2.4))

Or, leaving out the zero (you only need the indexes if you print things out of
order or multiple times):

print('{:.4f}'.format(2.4))

Also, I re-remembered that there is an alternative formatting method (I don't
print formatted output that often in python, I guess):

print("%.4f" % 2.4)

will do the same as the above two examples. Either way, to make things easy,
you could define your own print function to do that for you, e.g.:

def myprint(num, places=4, *args, **kargs):
fmt_str = "{:." + str(places) + "f}"
print(fmt_str.format(num), *args, **kargs)

Using it would look like (in IPython):

In [13]: myprint(2.4)
2.4000

In [14]: myprint(2.4, 5)
2.40000

You would put this in the startup script after the import line. Note that it
passes extra positional and keyword arguments to print(), so you can specify a
file to print to, for example. Also note that because of this, it won't work in
Python 2.

HTH
--
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup

new machine : Python calculator
 

[...]
>
> def myprint(num, places=4, *args, **kargs):
> fmt_str = "{:." + str(places) + "f}"
> print(fmt_str.format(num), *args, **kargs)

OK, quick update because I just realised how weird it is to have positional
arguments after a (potential) keyword argument (I really should go to bed).
Either of these is better:

# "places" is exclusively a keyword argument now
def myprint(num, *args, places=4, **kargs):
fmt_str = "{:." + str(places) + "f}"
print(fmt_str.format(num), *args, **kargs)

# doesn't support extra arguments to print(), but is simpler
def myprint(num, places=4):
fmt_str = "{:." + str(places) + "f}"
print(fmt_str.format(num))

--
Marc Joliet
--
"People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know we
don't" - Bjarne Stroustrup