Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering • Hacker News Board

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#21

Post by sevg » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 5:35 AM UTC

rrwright wrote: post #18

sevg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like mods changed the title to the title of the GitHub Issue. This from HN guidelines is probably why: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

Good catch on the guidelines. But that github issue title obviously misses the point. The whole point is that it's a silent error in Claude Code.

A matter of opinion, but I actually don’t think the current headline is too bad. When I saw the headline and “github.com/anthropic” next to it, my initial assumption was that it must be a problem introduced by Claude Code rather than a bug in bash or something.

That said, I don’t think your edited headline was bad either, but perhaps there wasn’t enough reason not to use the original (which is a default I personally appreciate on HN).

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#22

Post by amorriscode » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #4

I forgot which blogpost mentioned it, but to paraphrase it states that managers won’t understand why you can’t just fix a bug like this in a few minutes like you would in traditional software. This might be one of those cases, where the problem arises from the training set somehow.

Merged a PR after seeing this thread so, thankfully, this was one of those bugs that you can just fix in minutes. ;)

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#23

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

rrwright wrote: post #16

Why did Hacker News rename the title of this post? It was originally: "Claude Code Introduces Off-by-One Errors" Original: https://pasteboard.co/xTjaRmnkhRRo.png Unilaterally Edited: https://pasteboard.co/rDPINchmufIF.png

Probably for a couple reasons:

First, HN prefers the source title unless that title is misleaing clickbait.

Second, the problem is not consistently off-by-one errors, as there is a manifestation shown in the bug of an off-by-much-less-than-one error. The problem looks like a "for some reason it seems to be roundtripping numbers in text through a numeric representation which has about [perhaps exactly] the same precisions issues as float64" issue.

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#24

Post by amorriscode » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

We merged a fix for this that'll go out in the ~next release.

Also, for clarification, this bug was only impacting the display of numbers in the TUI, not what the model sees. The model sees raw results from bash.

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#25

Post by jimbo808 » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #6

Claude Code is simultaneously the most useful and lowest quality app I use. It's filled with little errors and annoyances but succeeds despite them. Not to mention the official documentation is entirely vibe-copywritten and any quality control is cursory at best. It forcibly installs itself to ~/.local/bin. Do you already have a file at that location? Not anymore. When typing into the prompt, EACH KEYSTROKE results i…

I use it daily for boilerplate and CRUD stuff, and have been since it came out. I honestly haven't experienced any bugs at all with it other than Anthropic server outages, etc. As far as agentic coding tools go, nothing else is close.

That being said, it's still an LLM, and LLMs are more of a liability than an asset to me. I was an early adopter and still use them heavily, but I don't attempt to use them to do important work.

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#26

Post by o11c » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 6:26 AM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #6

Claude Code is simultaneously the most useful and lowest quality app I use. It's filled with little errors and annoyances but succeeds despite them. Not to mention the official documentation is entirely vibe-copywritten and any quality control is cursory at best. It forcibly installs itself to ~/.local/bin. Do you already have a file at that location? Not anymore. When typing into the prompt, EACH KEYSTROKE results i…

Does `mosh` work better than `ssh` for this?

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#27

Post by boxed » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 7:02 AM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #6

Claude Code is simultaneously the most useful and lowest quality app I use. It's filled with little errors and annoyances but succeeds despite them. Not to mention the official documentation is entirely vibe-copywritten and any quality control is cursory at best. It forcibly installs itself to ~/.local/bin. Do you already have a file at that location? Not anymore. When typing into the prompt, EACH KEYSTROKE results i…

The "failed to read file"/"failed to write file" errors that are constantly being displayed is the most glaring imo. I even get it in the interactive web version of claude.

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#28

Post by CGamesPlay » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 7:34 AM UTC

DecoPerson wrote: post #11

CGamesPlay wrote: post #6

Claude Code is simultaneously the most useful and lowest quality app I use. It's filled with little errors and annoyances but succeeds despite them. Not to mention the official documentation is entirely vibe-copywritten and any quality control is cursory at best. It forcibly installs itself to ~/.local/bin. Do you already have a file at that location? Not anymore. When typing into the prompt, EACH KEYSTROKE results i…

Ha, interesting. Using Claude Code in Zed, I never encountered any of these defects. I just open a Claude Code Thread, tell it what I want, bypass permissions (my remote is a container), and let it work. And it works wonderfully! I guess the “integrated” part of IDE is pretty important.

Honestly, most of the problems I have with Claude Code are frontend problems, so this wouldn't surprise me. I wonder if it's possible to make an alternative CLI frontend to it.

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#29

Post by porridgeraisin » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 8:17 AM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #19

ec109685 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wrap bash with python.

I still suspect JS. It's much harder to shoot yourself in the foot with Python. Even if you use JSON: >>> json.loads('{"nr": 348555896224571969}') {'nr': 348555896224571969} >>> type(_['nr'])

TIL that in the python REPL `_` automatically has the previous expr's result. That's cool

Re: Large integer precision error in Bash command output rendering

#30

Post by namibj » Thu, Nov 13, 2025, 8:19 AM UTC

o11c wrote: post #26

CGamesPlay wrote: post #6

Claude Code is simultaneously the most useful and lowest quality app I use. It's filled with little errors and annoyances but succeeds despite them. Not to mention the official documentation is entirely vibe-copywritten and any quality control is cursory at best. It forcibly installs itself to ~/.local/bin. Do you already have a file at that location? Not anymore. When typing into the prompt, EACH KEYSTROKE results i…

Does `mosh` work better than `ssh` for this?

Yes.