[erlang-bugs] float parsing bug

[Ulf Wiger]

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Alexander Borovsky wrote:
> 
> 42.0 could have text representation "42".
> 
> In most languages (C, Java, Ruby, etc) "42" parsed to float with no errors.
> 
> Also in some cases float values could be outputted with no decimal point:

This is why I wrote "arguably". :)

The question has been up on the mailing list before:

http://www.erlang.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?4:msp:15372:bkelgefglpkakhbedlbf
(May 12 2005)
http://www.erlang.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi/4/27647 (Jul 3 2007)
http://www.erlang.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi/4/37899 (Sep 4 2008)

In the last one, Richard Carlsson wrote:

  It's a "feature": list_to_float/1 is a rather low level function,
  which assumes that you have already checked that the string has the
  proper form for an Erlang float, i.e., "0.0" and "1.0E-3" are ok,
  but "22", ".0", and "0." are not.

But you're definitely not the first one to disagree with this design
decision.

BR,
UlfW
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