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From: Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: Problems using struct pack/unpack in files, and reading them.
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 02:12:28 +0200
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Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>:

> Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> writes:
>> Actually, the real question is, is the unary - *really* so useful
>> that it merits existence or is it just something that was mindlessly
>> copied into programming languages from elementary school arithmetics?
>
> The alternative, if you want to be able to specify negative numbers at
> all, is to put - in the literal syntax. So what's "x-1"?

Yes, it would have to be part of the literal syntax.

Or, you could do without!

   >>> 7 - 8
   (0-1)

After all, we already have:

   >>> 1 + 3j
   (1+3j)


Marko