Re: seq -w floating point incorrect formating

[Philip Rowlands]

On Sat, 14 Feb 2009, Samuel Hap?k wrote:

> I think that seq is not behaving correctly on this input:
> seq -w 9 0.5 10
>
> I obtain the output:
> 9.0
> 9.5
> 10.0
>
> While I think I should obtain:
> 09.0
> 09.5
> 10.0

 From the info documentation:

`-w'
`--equal-width'
     Print all numbers with the same width, by padding with leading
     zeros.  FIRST, STEP, and LAST should all use a fixed point decimal
     representation.  (To have other kinds of padding, use `--format').

As your example doesn't use a fixed point representation (e.g. seq 9.0 
0.5 10.0) the result is undefined. However, the wording is confusing 
("should" use? why not "must"?). It would be helpful if seq assumed the 
".0" where needed.

Another curious output comes from:

$ seq -w 1 4.5 112
01.0
05.5
10.0
14.5
19.0
23.5
28.0
32.5
37.0
41.5
46.0
50.5
55.0
59.5
64.0
68.5
73.0
77.5
82.0
86.5
91.0
95.5
100.0
104.5
109.0



Cheers,
Phil