readFloat
Simon Peyton-Jones
simonpj@microsoft.com
Tue, 28 May 2002 09:57:58 -0700
Folks
I'm back to tidying up the Haskell Report.
In the Numeric library, there is the useful function
readFloat :: RealFloat a =3D> ReadS a
But you can't use it for reading rationals, because Rational
isn't in RealFloat!
This is a Royal Pain, and entirely unnecessary. In fact,
readFloat uses only operations from the RealFrac class,
so it could equally well have type
readFloat :: RealFrac a =3D> ReadS a
I'm strongly inclined to make this change. It breaks no
programs, and it fixes a real bug i.e. there is no way to
read a "103" as a Rational.
Simon