# 6.9.4. Fractional looking integer literals¶

NumDecimals
Since: 7.8.1

Allow the use of scientific notation style borrowed from floating-point literal syntax for integral types.

Haskell 2010 and Haskell 98 define floating literals with the syntax 1.2e6, resembling scientific notation. These literals have the type Fractional a => a.

The language extension NumDecimals allows you to also use the scientific notation and floating point literal syntax for instances of Num, and have values like 1.2e6 :: Num a => a and 5e10 :: Num a => a . This applies only to literals that really turn out to have integral values. For example 1.23e1 :: Fractional a => a since 1.23e1 == 12.3, however 1.23e2 :: Num a => a as 1.23e2 == 123.

Integral literals written using scientific notation will be desugared using fromInteger, whereas any literals which aren’t integral will be desugared using fromRational as usual.

Note that regular floating point literals (without exponents) will also be desugared via fromInteger and assigned type Num a => a if they represent an integral value. For example 1.0 :: Num a => a, but 1.1 :: Fractional a => a.