Re: bignum incompatible with looks_like_number() ???

In article <4684f46f$0$30511$afc38c87@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Sisyphus" <sisyphus1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Well, I started by reading this carefully:
http://perldoc.perl.org/bignum.html

As it says:
------------------------------------
If you do
use bignum;

at the top of your script, Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt will be loaded
and any constant number will be converted to an object (Math::BigFloat for
floats like 3.1415 and Math::BigInt for integers like 1234).
------------------------------------

That's about all it does, all it ever has does, and all it ever will do.

It's just a convenient way of working with the Math::Big* modules. It
doesn't mean that perl has suddenly been transformed into something that
natively handles numbers with magically-extended precision. If you want the
extended precision you still have to stay within the realm of the Math::Big*
modules - or you can use other packages that provided extended precision
(Math::Pari, Math::GMP, Math::MPFR, etc.)

There's no mention of 'looks_like_number' anywhere on that page.


Then I found a bunch of stuff like this:
http://rt.perl.org/rt3//Public/Bug/Display.html?id=27606


That's just a discussion of a bug in looks_like_number() - whereby
looks_like_number(undef) returned true. I don't see the relevance of that in
the context of this thread. The bug is fixed in perl 5.8.8 (and perhaps
earlier - I haven't checked).

Sisyphus, you have chosen your handle well.

Please give some examples of how you imagine bignum is SUPPOSED to be
used.

Please include $x = 2**512+0.0 in your examples.

CB

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