[erlang-patches] [erlang-questions] [patch] new float_to_list/2

Sverker Eriksson sverker@REDACTED
Tue Mar 13 18:15:03 CET 2012



#1. The patch does not compile on Windows:

error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _snprintf referenced in 
function _sys_double_to_chars_fast

Use erts_snprintf instead. Same as snprintf with extra %T feature for printing Erlang terms.


#2. We don't like identical source copies of sys_double_to_chars_fast().
There is a directory sys/common for shared code.


/Sverker, Erlang/OTP


Gustav Simonsson wrote:
> Hi Serge,
>
> We'll get back to you about this patch after the ERTS team have 
> reviewed it.
> Thank you for the contribution!
>
> Regards,
> Gustav Simonsson
> Erlang/OTP team
>
> On 2012-03-08 19:03, Serge Aleynikov wrote:
>> Dear Sverker,
>>
>> Sorry for a belated response.  The following commit addresses three 
>> issues you indicated.  Attached is also a small performance test 
>> program which illustrates that the new float_to_list/2 is about 6x 
>> faster than float_to_list/1:
>>
>> https://github.com/saleyn/otp/commit/d7a108f28fd8cd519852feb0233920af511b5eba 
>>
>>
>> git fetch git://github.com/saleyn/otp.git float_to_list_2
>>
>> https://github.com/saleyn/otp/compare/float_to_list_2
>> https://github.com/saleyn/otp/compare/float_to_list_2.patch
>>
>>
>> Executing the attachment test function:
>> 1> test:test(1.0).
>> float_to_list(1.000000, [])               = {0.149531,"1.000000"}
>> float_to_list(1.000000, [{decimals, 4}]) = {0.109001,"1.0000"}
>> float_to_list(1.000000) = {0.629831,"1.00000000000000000000e+00"}
>> ok
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Serge
>>
>> P.S. I don't have access to solaris and freebsd at the moment, but 
>> the code works on 32/64-bit linux, and is identical for those two 
>> platforms.
>>
>> On 3/28/2011 11:39 AM, Sverker Eriksson wrote:
>>> Thanks for your patch. As you may have seen it did not make it into 
>>> R14B02.
>>>
>>> Comments:
>>>
>>> 1. Test fail on some platforms (32-bit solaris, freebsd and 64-bit 
>>> linux)
>>>
>>> float_to_list(1.0,[compact])
>>>
>>> returns "1." instead of "1.0"
>>>
>>>
>>> 2. Would like the interface to be extendable to support printf's %e and
>>> %g formats in future. Maybe just rename 'precision' to 'decimals'.
>>>
>>> 3. Why is default 4 decimals when printf and io:format has 6 as 
>>> default.
>>>
>>>
>>> /Sverker, Erlang/OTP
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Serge Aleynikov wrote:
>>>> This implementation has been submitted as the pull request:
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/erlang/otp/pull/9
>>>>
>>>> This version is also optimized to run 5-10x faster than
>>>> float_to_list/1 for floats under 2^52.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Serge
>>>>
>>>> On 1/14/2011 10:33 AM, Gleb Peregud wrote:
>>>>> Here's my patch:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.erlang.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi/4/43529
>>>>>
>>>>> It uses double sprintf invocations. Your solution is clearly 
>>>>> better (I
>>>>> didn't knew it is possible to specify precision in args).
>>>>>
>>>>> Your benchmark shows that difference is negligible. Between 
>>>>> integer as
>>>>> a second parameter or a proplist (~0.4%). Though it might be a bit
>>>>> more "stable" in terms of running time, but still probably not worth
>>>>> considering it for performance reasons. It still may be useful in
>>>>> terms of simpler API, but I have no strong opinion on it.
>>>>>
>>>>> So generally +1 on including Serge's patch into Erlang. Serge, can 
>>>>> you
>>>>> put it into GitHub pull request? As described here:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://github.com/erlang/otp/wiki/submitting-patches
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> Gleb
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 18:13, Serge Aleynikov<serge@REDACTED>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> I did a micro-benchmark on a slightly modified version of the BIF 
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> accepts an integer as its options. The results shown below display a
>>>>>> very
>>>>>> insignificant difference between a call with no options and a call
>>>>>> with an
>>>>>> integer precision passed as the second argument:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1> test:test().
>>>>>> float_to_list(123.4, []) = {0.619512,"123.4000"}
>>>>>> float_to_list(123.4, [{precision, 4}]) = {0.624895,"123.4000"}
>>>>>> float_to_list(123.4, 4) = {0.622896,"123.4000"}
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The majority of time is actually spent in the printf(3) function, 
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> takes longer to execute when given the "%.*f" argument compared to
>>>>>> "%g" as
>>>>>> in float_to_list/1 case.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Did your patch rely on printf?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/12/2011 9:23 AM, Gleb Peregud wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Some time ago I've submitted similar but simpler patch. It was a
>>>>>>> float_to_list/2 with a second parameter being an integer specifying
>>>>>>> precision. For me it was important to generate A LOT of floats as
>>>>>>> strings as fast as possible with specified precision. Serge's 
>>>>>>> version
>>>>>>> has an overhead of inspecting proplist of the second parameter. 
>>>>>>> So I
>>>>>>> was wondering about introducing two versions of this function: 
>>>>>>> with a
>>>>>>> proplist as a second parameter and with a number as a second
>>>>>>> parameter. Alternatively proplist version can be factored out into
>>>>>>> float_to_list_opts/2.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Just my 0.2 cents
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 15:10, Serge Aleynikov<serge@REDACTED>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The reason I called it precision was to be consistent with the 
>>>>>>>> naming
>>>>>>>> convention of the printf function. Below is the extract from 
>>>>>>>> "man 3
>>>>>>>> printf", which refers to the digits after the decimal point as
>>>>>>>> "precision":
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> f, F The double argument is rounded and converted to decimal
>>>>>>>> notation in the style [-]ddd.ddd, where the number of
>>>>>>>> digits after the decimal-point character is equal to the
>>>>>>>> precision specification. If the precision is missing,
>>>>>>>> it is taken as 6; if the precision is explicitly zero,
>>>>>>>> no decimal-point character appears. If a decimal point
>>>>>>>> appears, at least one digit appears before it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I don't have a very strong preference for calling it precision or
>>>>>>>> scale,
>>>>>>>> but
>>>>>>>> I do have a strong preference for including this patch in the
>>>>>>>> distribution,
>>>>>>>> because the default behavior of float_to_list/1 hard-coded in C is
>>>>>>>> deficient.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 1/12/2011 4:58 AM, nox wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Il should be called "scale", shouldn't it?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Le 12 janv. 2011 à 10:26, Pierpaolo 
>>>>>>>>> Bernardi<olopierpa@REDACTED> a
>>>>>>>>> écrit
>>>>>>>>> :
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 06:44, Serge 
>>>>>>>>>> Aleynikov<serge@REDACTED>
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Attached please find a patch that adds a new float_to_list/2
>>>>>>>>>>> BIF. The
>>>>>>>>>>> patch
>>>>>>>>>>> was created off of the master branch of
>>>>>>>>>>> https://github.com/erlang/otp.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> This BIF solves a problem of float_to_list/1 that doesn't allow
>>>>>>>>>>> specifying
>>>>>>>>>>> the number of digits after the decimal point when formatting
>>>>>>>>>>> floats.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> float_to_list(Float, Options) -> string()
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Float = float()
>>>>>>>>>>> Options = [Option]
>>>>>>>>>>> Option = {precision, Precision::integer()} | compact
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Text representation of a float formatted using given options
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Returns a string which corresponds to the text
>>>>>>>>>>> representation of Float using fixed decimal point formatting.
>>>>>>>>>>> When precision option is specified
>>>>>>>>>>> the returned value will contain at most Precision number of
>>>>>>>>>>> digits past the decimal point. When compact option is provided
>>>>>>>>>>> the trailing zeros at the end of the list are truncated.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I think the option is misnamed.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> In the usual terminology, 'precision' is the total number of
>>>>>>>>>> significative digits, not only the ones past the decimal point.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>>>>>> P.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> ________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> erlang-questions (at) erlang.org mailing list.
>>>>>>>>>> See http://www.erlang.org/faq.html
>>>>>>>>>> To unsubscribe; mailto:erlang-questions-unsubscribe@REDACTED
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ________________________________________________________________
>>>>>>>> erlang-questions (at) erlang.org mailing list.
>>>>>>>> See http://www.erlang.org/faq.html
>>>>>>>> To unsubscribe; mailto:erlang-questions-unsubscribe@REDACTED
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________________________________
>>>> erlang-patches (at) erlang.org mailing list.
>>>> See http://www.erlang.org/faq.html
>>>> To unsubscribe; mailto:erlang-patches-unsubscribe@REDACTED
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> erlang-patches mailing list
>> erlang-patches@REDACTED
>> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-patches
>
>





More information about the erlang-patches mailing list