Merged revisions 83732 via svnmerge from

svn+ssh://pythondev@svn.python.org/python/branches/py3k

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  r83732 | mark.dickinson | 2010-08-04 19:42:43 +0100 (Wed, 04 Aug 2010) | 3 lines

  Issue #9498:  Add reference to sys.float_info from 'numeric types' docs.
  Thanks Yitz Gale.
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diff --git a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
index bf125bd77898f55b44e9f987ca4df41ef95d119e..ef1fbee851667e63d5d0e6c3b5a6100751f0ad65 100644 (file)
--- a/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/stdtypes.rst
@@ -216,14 +216,15 @@ Numeric Types --- :class:`int`, :class:`float`, :class:`complex`
 There are three distinct numeric types: :dfn:`integers`, :dfn:`floating
 point numbers`, and :dfn:`complex numbers`.  In addition, Booleans are a
 subtype of integers.  Integers have unlimited precision.  Floating point
-numbers are implemented using :ctype:`double` in C---all bets on their
-precision are off unless you happen to know the machine you are working
-with. Complex numbers have a real and imaginary part, which are each
-implemented using :ctype:`double` in C.  To extract these parts from a
-complex number *z*, use ``z.real`` and ``z.imag``. (The standard library
-includes additional numeric types, :mod:`fractions` that hold rationals,
-and :mod:`decimal` that hold floating-point numbers with user-definable
-precision.)
+numbers are usually implemented using :ctype:`double` in C; information
+about the precision and internal representation of floating point
+numbers for the machine on which your program is running is available
+in :data:`sys.float_info`.  Complex numbers have a real and imaginary
+part, which are each a floating point number.  To extract these parts
+from a complex number *z*, use ``z.real`` and ``z.imag``. (The standard
+library includes additional numeric types, :mod:`fractions` that hold
+rationals, and :mod:`decimal` that hold floating-point numbers with
+user-definable precision.)
 
 .. index::
    pair: numeric; literals