Show how to remove exponents.

diff --git a/Doc/library/decimal.rst b/Doc/library/decimal.rst
index 2f191bddca37ffa5d09fcf6470c25256136e604d..0a8262d6e54a7c3921c77a7183749ff1bd62669d 100644 (file)
--- a/Doc/library/decimal.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/decimal.rst
@@ -1590,6 +1590,7 @@ to handle the :meth:`quantize` step::
     ...     return (x * y).quantize(fp)
     >>> def div(x, y, fp=TWOPLACES):
     ...     return (x / y).quantize(fp)
+
     >>> mul(a, b)                       # Automatically preserve fixed-point
     Decimal('325.62')
     >>> div(b, a)
@@ -1615,6 +1616,16 @@ of significant places in the coefficient.  For example, expressing
 :const:`5.0E+3` as :const:`5000` keeps the value constant but cannot show the
 original's two-place significance.
 
+If an application does not care about tracking significance, it is easy to
+remove the exponent and trailing zeroes, losing signficance, but keeping the
+value unchanged::
+
+    >>> def remove_exponent(d):
+    ...     return d.quantize(Decimal(1)) if d == d.to_integral() else d.normalize()
+
+    >>> remove_exponent(Decimal('5E+3'))
+    Decimal('5000')
+
 Q. Is there a way to convert a regular float to a :class:`Decimal`?
 
 A. Yes, all binary floating point numbers can be exactly expressed as a