linspace behavior with integer arguments

[Staross]

x = linspace(0,1,10)

Gives me:

0000011111

Which is not very linear.

[mlubin]

You want linspace(0.0,1.0,10). I'll let other people comment on whether what you saw is the right behavior.

[dmbates]

Check the version of Julia you are using. For me it is

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 0.2.0-509.rcecd.dirty
Commit cecd879dc4 2013-03-15 09:29:31*
Platform Info:
  OS_NAME: Linux
Using: (64-bit interface)
  Blas: libopenblas
  Lapack: libopenblas
  Libm: libopenlibm

Also, I think you wanted

julia> linspace(1,10,10)
10-element Int64 Array:
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
 10

[pao]

Title changed to reflect actual issue. Adding decision tag.

[JeffBezanson]

I deliberately gave integer output for integer input. But perhaps nobody ever actually wants that?

[Staross]

The idea with linspace (linear space) is that it does linear interpolation between the two first arguments, which produce a line:

"Construct a vector of n linearly-spaced elements from start to stop."

The current behavior gives you a step function instead of a line.

I guess I would like the linear behavior 99% of the time, and could deal with the 1% with a round().

[JeffBezanson]

That seems reasonable.

[mlubin]

As long as the arguments aren't automatically converted to floating point, because the following behavior shouldn't change:

julia> linspace(0//1,1//1,5)
5-element Rational{Int64} Array:
 0//1
 1//4
 1//2
 3//4
 1//1