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Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 13:53:55 -0500
From: Andrew Berg <robotsondrugs@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: math functions with non numeric args
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:49507

On 2013.06.30 13:46, Andrew Z wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> print max(-10, 10)
> 10
> print max('-10', 10)
> -10
> 
> My guess max converts string to number bye decoding each of the characters to it's ASCII equivalent?
> 
> Where can i read more on exactly how the situations like these are dealt with?
This behavior is fixed in Python 3:

>>> max('10', 10)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unorderable types: int() > str()

Python is strongly typed, so it shouldn't magically convert something from one type to another.
Explicit is better than implicit.
-- 
CPython 3.3.2 | Windows NT 6.2.9200 / FreeBSD 9.1