An extension of the built-in ``range()`` function whose arguments can
be any orderable numeric type.
With only *stop* specified, *start* defaults to ``0`` and *step*
defaults to ``1``. The output items will match the type of *stop*:
>>> list(numeric_range(3.5))
[0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0]
With only *start* and *stop* specified, *step* defaults to ``1``. The
output items will match the type of *start*:
>>> from decimal import Decimal
>>> start = Decimal('2.1')
>>> stop = Decimal('5.1')
>>> list(numeric_range(start, stop))
[Decimal('2.1'), Decimal('3.1'), Decimal('4.1')]
With *start*, *stop*, and *step* specified the output items will match
the type of ``start + step``:
>>> from fractions import Fraction
>>> start = Fraction(1, 2) # Start at 1/2
>>> stop = Fraction(5, 2) # End at 5/2
>>> step = Fraction(1, 2) # Count by 1/2
>>> list(numeric_range(start, stop, step))
[Fraction(1, 2), Fraction(1, 1), Fraction(3, 2), Fraction(2, 1)]
If *step* is zero, ``ValueError`` is raised. Negative steps are supported:
>>> list(numeric_range(3, -1, -1.0))
[3.0, 2.0, 1.0, 0.0]
Be aware of the limitations of floating point numbers; the representation
of the yielded numbers may be surprising.
``datetime.datetime`` objects can be used for *start* and *stop*, if *step*
is a ``datetime.timedelta`` object:
>>> import datetime
>>> start = datetime.datetime(2019, 1, 1)
>>> stop = datetime.datetime(2019, 1, 3)
>>> step = datetime.timedelta(days=1)
>>> items = iter(numeric_range(start, stop, step))
>>> next(items)
datetime.datetime(2019, 1, 1, 0, 0)
>>> next(items)
datetime.datetime(2019, 1, 2, 0, 0)