[IPython-user] from __future__ import division

[Fernando Perez]

Fernando Perez wrote:
> Harri Pasanen wrote:
> 
> 
>>Hmm.. doesn't seem to work for me, at least not with
>>./downloads/ipython-0.6.15-py23.noarch.rpm installed on Python 2.3.3
>>that came with Mandrake Linux 10.0.
>>
>>I'm tempted to chalk this up as a bug/limitation in the __future__
>>implentation of Python itself.  Looks like it takes effect only in the
>>execution context of the __future__ import, and as it is not really a
>>namespace thing, passing namespaces does not help...
> 
> 
> well, that's odd, it certainly works for me:

OK, I guess I should clarify what I mean by 'works for me':

In [1]: 4/3
Out[1]: 1.3333333333333333

In [2]: ed foo.py
Editing... done. Executing edited code...
1

In [3]: cat foo.py
print 4/3


The modification I mentioned enables true division at the ipython prompt for 
interactively typed statements, but it doesn't do anything for modules and 
scripts you may run, because the Python VM treats the division flag as a 
per-module thing.  So regardless of what you do at the ipython command line, 
if you want true division in your scripts, you'll still need the __future__ 
import explicitly there, and you'll have to do it in _each_ module where you 
wish to activate true division.

I hope that is clearer now.

Cheers,

f