What Is a Literal?
- A literal is a sequence of one or more characters that represents itself.
Numeric Literals
- A numeric literal consists of digits 0–9, an optional sign character (1 or 2), and a possible decimal point.
- If a numeric literal contains a decimal point, it represents a floating-point value (e.g., 10.24); otherwise, it represents an integer value (e.g., 10).
- Commas are not used in numeric literals.
Representation:
-
Numeric literals without
an explicit sign character denote positive values.
Explicit positive sign characters are rarely used. - Explicit positive sign characters are rarely used.
- Limits of Range in Floating-Point Representation
- In Python, integers have no limit to their size, while floating-point values have both a limited range and precision.
- Python uses a double-precision standard format (IEEE 754), offering a range from 10^-308 to 10^308 with 16 to 17 digits of precision.
- Floating-point
values can
be represented in scientific notation for
denoting a range of values.
- Arithmetic
overflow occurs
when a calculated result is too large to be represented, resulting in the
special value inf (infinity).
- Arithmetic
underflow occurs
when a calculated result is too small to be represented, resulting in the
value 0.0.
- It’s crucial to understand the limitations of floating-point representation to avoid inaccuracies in calculations.
Limits of Precision in
Floating-Point Representation
- Arithmetic overflow and underflow are easily detected, but loss of precision can be a subtle issue.
- Floating-point representations often store only an approximation of the true value due to the finite number of digits.
- Python rounds calculated results for display, but the stored value remains approximate.
- While slight loss of accuracy may not matter for everyday applications, it’s critical for precise calculations in scientific computing and other domains.