Converting a Python Float to a String without losing precision

Question

I am maintaining a Python script that uses xlrd to retrieve values from Excel spreadsheets, and then do various things with them. Some of the cells in the spreadshe

Answer 1

As has already been said, a float isn't precise at all - so preserving precision can be somewhat misleading.

Here's a way to get every last bit of information out of a float object:

>>> from decimal import Decimal
>>> str(Decimal.from_float(0.1))
'0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625'

Another way would be like so.

>>> 0.1.hex()
'0x1.999999999999ap-4'

Both strings represent the exact contents of the float. Allmost anything else interprets the float as python thinks it was probably intended (which most of the time is correct).