esoteric-sigdigs

🐍 A Python package that detects and rounds numbers to significant digits.

This package aims to provide easy-to-use functions to work with significant digits (also known as significant figures).

⚠ Please note that this package is almost certainly laced with bugs, so use it at your own risk! Additionally, the significant digit rules used may not be exactly what you are looking for; I have designed this package to fit the likely-esoteric way I have been taught to use significant digits. Sorry! If you encounter any issues, please create an issue on GitHub (https://github.com/ericli3690/esoteric-sigdigs) or email me at ericli3690@gmail.com.

🛠 Installation and Use

>> pip install esoteric-sigdigs

from sigdigs import function_name_here
function_name_here(arguments_here)

🧪 What is Scientific Notation?

Scientific notation is often used by this package, a string formatting of numbers which takes the following form:

a.bcdEf

And which can be written in standard formatting as

a.bcd * 10^f

It can be seen that f represents the exponent.

Here are some more examples, shown in scientific notation while pretending that trailing zeros are NOT significant (this is not how functions like standard_to_scientific in this package actually behave!):

Standard Formatting	Scientific Notation
123456	1.23456E5
120000	1.2E5
-0.0000056	-5.6E-6
10	1E1
8	8E0
100000000000	1E11

⚙ Functionality

🟥 sigdigs(*vals:float) -> int

Returns the number of significant digits of a provided float.

Given a list of numbers, it returns the lowest significant digits number provided by any of the floats in the list.

Trailing zeros are considered significant.

Zeros are considered to have one significant digit.

Examples:

Input	Output
123.456	6
100.0	4
0.00056	2
-34	2
4000	4
1	1
0	1
0.000	1
123.456, 100.0, 0.00056, -34, 4000	2

🟨 round_to_sigdigs(val:float, sig:int) -> str

Rounds a float to an integer number of significant digits.

Always returns answers in scientific notation.

Examples:

Value	Sigdigs	Output
3.255	5	3.2550E0
-8.33	1	-8E0
0.0056	1	6E-3
1234.5678	2	1.2E3
0	4	0E0
0.000	9	0E0

🟩 scientific_to_standard(val:str) -> str:

Converts a number in scientific notation to normal formatting, IF POSSIBLE.

Sometimes, converting to normal formatting would involve adding extra significant digits (ex. 1.2E3 cannot be rewritten as 1200, as this would involve adding two new significant digits).

In these cases, this function will simply return the input.

Examples:

Scientific Notation	Standard Formatting
1.23456E5	123456
1.2E5	1.2E5
-5.6E-6	-0.0000056
1.0E1	10
8E0	8
1E11	1E11
0E0	0

🟩 standard_to_scientific(val:float) -> str:

The inverse of the above operation!

Converts a float into scientific form.

Examples:

Standard Formatting	Scientific Notation
123456	1.23456E5
120000	1.20000E5
-0.0000056	-5.6E-6
10	1.0E1
8	8E0
100000000000	1.00000000000E11
0	0E0

🟦 round_to_sigdigs_and_standard_form_given_source(val:float, sigsource:list) -> str:

This is a common routine that I personally find useful.

Imagine a calculation being performed...

V = lwh

l = 50.0
w = 0.02345
h = 10

V = 11.725... but to how many significant digits?

This routine uses scientific_to_standard, round_to_sigdigs, and sigdigs to solve this efficiently.

For example, for this question, to obtain V with proper significant digits:

round_to_sigdigs_and_standard_form_given_source(50.0 * 0.02345 * 10, [50.0, 0.02345, 10])

Which outputs 12, as expected.