Why does Python discriminate positive and negative values of zero,?

Asked Feb 18 '20 at 05:05

Active Feb 18 '20 at 05:11

Viewed 45 times

I ran the following program on Python IDLE

while x<1000:
    print(x**x)
    x=x-1

And received the following output: Alternating positive and negative numbers for a while (like long float numbers with alternating signs) Then came this part, which was puzzling.

-0.0
0.0
-0.0
0.0
-0.0
0.0

Why does Python show it as negative and positive zero? Isn't that just plain wrong?

edited Feb 18 '20 at 05:11

asked Feb 18 '20 at 05:05

Vaishnav Varma

Sorry for the bad text formatting. I'm new here! – Vaishnav Varma Feb 18 '20 at 05:06
In short, it is to comply with IEEE 754. – iz_ Feb 18 '20 at 05:11
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signed_zero and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754 . what is your starting value of `x` before the loop? – hiro protagonist Feb 18 '20 at 05:11
i started with x=1 – Vaishnav Varma Feb 18 '20 at 05:12
what exactly is IEE 754? – Vaishnav Varma Feb 18 '20 at 05:12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_754 – iz_ Feb 18 '20 at 05:12
That's interesting(I mean IEEE 754), but it doesn't really have much of a purpose, does it? – Vaishnav Varma Feb 18 '20 at 05:14

Why does Python discriminate positive and negative values of zero,?

0 Answers0