[Python-Dev] PEP: New timestamp formats

Thu Feb 2 14:43:02 CET 2012

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 11:31 PM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
> Isn't the above (having the return type depend on an argument
> setting) something we generally try to avoid ?

In Victor's actual patch, the returned object is an instance of the
type you pass in, so it actually avoids that issue.
> I think it's better to settle on one type for high-res timers and
> add a new API(s) for it.

We've basically settled on decimal.Decimal now, so yeah, the decision
becomes one of spelling - either new APIs that always return Decimal
instances, or a way to ask the existing APIs to return Decimal instead
of floats.
The way I see it, the latter should be significantly less hassle to
maintain (since the code remains almost entirely shared), and it
becomes trivial for someone to layer a convenience wrapper over the
top that *always* requests the high precision output.
Cheers,
Nick.
-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia