Proposal: modify `Read` instances for `Float` and `Double`

[Iavor Diatchki]

To me, the notation makes sense if you think of the binary representation
of the number: each hex digit is 4 bits, and the base 2 exponent allows you
to move the decimal point by one bit.  I would guess that the exponent is
written in base 10, because that's easier for most people to understand,
and its bit-pattern representation is not all that important.



On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 5:07 PM, Levent Erkok <erkokl at gmail.com> wrote:

> Henning:
>
> Indeed, the proposal follows the description in p57-58 of
> http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1256.pdf, which dates
> back to 2007. (Some Haskell related deviations do exist, like dropping the
> final suffix, since Haskell doesn't need it; and requiring digits both
> before and after the dot.)
>
> I think of the format as precisely representing the value "mantissa x
> 2^exp"; where the mantissa is written in hexadecimal, and the exponent is
> left as a regular decimal integer. The discrepancy is rather weird, but I
> guess it made more sense when the standard was drafted. More importantly,
> all the other languages (C, Java, Python: http://www.exploringbinary.com/
> hexadecimal-floating-point-constants/) follow this convention as well; so
> it would be unfortunate if Haskell diverged.
>
> For the change in semantics for "reads:" That is indeed unfortunate since
> we lose backwards compatibility. But it's a very minor one and I would be
> curious if anyone depended on the existing semantics for any legitimate
> reason. I personally do not see any issues with it.
>
> -Levent.
>
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 11:20 AM, Henning Thielemann <
> lemming at henning-thielemann.de> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Tue, 28 Feb 2017, Iavor Diatchki wrote:
>>
>> This may affect existing programs---although it doesn't seem very
>>> likely.  Here is an example:
>>>
>>> current behavior:
>>>
>>> reads "0x10p10" = [(16.0,"p10")]
>>>
>>> new behavior:
>>>
>>> reads "0x10p10" = [(16384,"")]
>>>
>>
>>
>> "p" refers to a power of two and the exponent is written in decimal for a
>> hexadecimal mantissa. Looks pretty confusing to me but it seems that the
>> standard was made somewhen before this proposal.
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>
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