Floating point issues

Hi, I had the following issue reported to me by Albert (please CC him on responses), which if it is correct is certainly very confusing. Consider the following examples: Hugs> 3 ** 2 9.0 Hugs> 3 ** 2 :: Float 9.0 Hugs> 3 ** 2 :: Double 9.0 Hugs> 3 ** 2 == 9 False Hugs> 3 ** 2 == (9::Double) False Hugs> 3 ** 2 == (9::Float) True Note that GHC gets the sensible answer of True for all these cases. I also tested this on Linux Hugs with the same results as WinHugs. This doesn't seem that logical - I know floating point == is just asking for trouble, but why is the less precise one keeping the correct answer? Also it seems weird not to have the property that read . show = id and that show a == show b => a == b Thanks Neil