From: Kent Dahl <kentda@...>
Date: 2001-07-29T18:49:37+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:18732] Numbers classes.. Rational number? [was: Ruby as opposed to Python?]

Jean Michel wrote:
> I think both behaviours are incorrect. One should have
>    5/2==5/2
> (the Rational number 5/2). Ruby has big ints, it should also
> have Rationals :)

I second that proposal.

I've started meddling with a hobby-project I hope will take over my
personal accounting needs a few days ago, and some Rational numbers
would have been nice at the time.

Accounting stuff and floats don't go together very well, so now I'm
doing the (hackish)  thing of maintaining an Amount object that
maintains a (fixed) divisor. Using Rational numbers would be alot more
elegant, especially if they give the range of both a Bignum divisor and
dividend. (Since Bignum doesn't have any limit, right?)

Is there any Rational classes out there? I scanned thru the RAA before I
wrote my current hack, but couldn't see any.

-- 
<[ Kent Dahl ]>================<[ http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~kentda/ ]>
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