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Inspired by this questionthis question, I was trying to find out what exactly happens there (my answer was more intuitive, but I cannot exactly understand the why of it).

I believe it comes down to this (running 64 bit Python):

>>> sys.maxint 9223372036854775807 >>> float(sys.maxint) 9.2233720368547758e+18

Python uses the IEEE 754 floating-point representation, which effectively has 53 bits for the significant. However, as far as I understand it, the significant in the above example would require 57 bits (56 if you drop the implied leading 1) to be represented. Can someone explain this discrepancy?

Inspired by this question, I was trying to find out what exactly happens there (my answer was more intuitive, but I cannot exactly understand the why of it).

I believe it comes down to this (running 64 bit Python):

>>> sys.maxint 9223372036854775807 >>> float(sys.maxint) 9.2233720368547758e+18

Python uses the IEEE 754 floating-point representation, which effectively has 53 bits for the significant. However, as far as I understand it, the significant in the above example would require 57 bits (56 if you drop the implied leading 1) to be represented. Can someone explain this discrepancy?

Inspired by this question, I was trying to find out what exactly happens there (my answer was more intuitive, but I cannot exactly understand the why of it).

I believe it comes down to this (running 64 bit Python):

>>> sys.maxint 9223372036854775807 >>> float(sys.maxint) 9.2233720368547758e+18

Python uses the IEEE 754 floating-point representation, which effectively has 53 bits for the significant. However, as far as I understand it, the significant in the above example would require 57 bits (56 if you drop the implied leading 1) to be represented. Can someone explain this discrepancy?

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Björn Pollex
Björn Pollex
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Can someone explain this floating-point behavior?

Inspired by this question, I was trying to find out what exactly happens there (my answer was more intuitive, but I cannot exactly understand the why of it).

I believe it comes down to this (running 64 bit Python):

>>> sys.maxint 9223372036854775807 >>> float(sys.maxint) 9.2233720368547758e+18

Python uses the IEEE 754 floating-point representation, which effectively has 53 bits for the significant. However, as far as I understand it, the significant in the above example would require 57 bits (56 if you drop the implied leading 1) to be represented. Can someone explain this discrepancy?