m3-cdecimal 2.3

Overview

The cdecimal package is a fast drop-in replacement for the decimal module in Python’s standard library. Both modules provide complete implementations of Mike Cowlishaw/IBM’s General Decimal Arithmetic Specification.

Testing

Both cdecimal and the underlying library - libmpdec - are extremely well tested. libmpdec is one of the few open source projects with 100% code coverage. cdecimal is rigorously tested against decimal.py.

Short benchmarks

Typical performance gains are between 30x for I/O heavy benchmarks and 80x for numerical programs. In a database benchmark, cdecimal exhibits a speedup of 12x over decimal.py.

Documentation

Since cdecimal is compatible with decimal.py, the official documentation is valid. For the few remaining differences, refer to the second link.

• Decimal module

• Differences between cdecimal and decimal

Linux Notes

The build process requires a working C compiler and a full Python install with development headers. Linux distributions often ship the Python header files as a separate package, called python-dev or python-devel.

Install headers on Debian/Ubuntu:

• sudo apt-get install python-dev

Windows Notes

• Binary installers

Links

• cdecimal project homepage

• cdecimal benchmarks