Newbie question - Advanced math functions available under Windows?

[The Toad]

I'm completely new to Python and just installed it on my Win 2000
machine. I was planning to use it for quick-and-dirty numerical
programming. The sort of thing people did in QuickBasic before DOS
was replaced by Windows.

When I try to use numerical functions like sqrt() or sin(), I get
error messages like
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in -toplevel-
x = sqrt(10)
NameError: name 'sqrt' is not defined
The math module documentation says that these math functions are "thin
wrapers" around the platform C library funtions. This seems to assume
a Unix/Linux system platform.

Does this mean that math functions like sqrt(), etc. are not available
in Python when running on Windows based systems? Thanks in advance.

DB

 

[Brian Jones]

If you are working from the python shell, you will want to import the
math module first:

then call the functions like so:
3.1622776601683795

Hope that helps,

-- Brian Jones

 

[Tim Heaney]

The math module documentation says that these math functions are "thin
wrapers" around the platform C library funtions. This seems to assume
a Unix/Linux system platform.

Does this mean that math functions like sqrt(), etc. are not available
in Python when running on Windows based systems? Thanks in advance.

No, you just need to import the math module.
3.1622776601683795

If you want, you can import sqrt into your namespace
3.1622776601683795

Often, you see people import everything from a module into their
namespace with an asterisk
3.1622776601683795

I hope this helps,

Tim

 

[The Toad]

No, you just need to import the math module.

3.1622776601683795

If you want, you can import sqrt into your namespace

3.1622776601683795

Often, you see people import everything from a module into their
namespace with an asterisk

3.1622776601683795

I hope this helps,

Tim

Thanks to Tim and Brian! This helps a great deal.

DB