I'm trying to add decimal numbers a decimal number and it works correctly but when I do 1.1 + 0.1 I get 1.2000000000000002 but all I want it to equal to is 1.2. When I do 1.0 + 0.1 I get 1.1 which is perfect but i don't get that for 1.1 + 0.1. So is there a way that I can get rid of the 000000000000002 from 1.2000000000000002?
Thanks.
As has been stated countless times, 0.1 cannot be represented exactly in IEEE 754 floating point. You can read all about why in What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic or The Floating Point Guide
You can trucate or round the value:
>>> round(1.1+.1,2)
1.2
>>> "%.*f" % (1, 1.1+.1 )
'1.2'
>>> s=str(1.1+.1)
>>> s[0:s.find('.')+2]
'1.2'
If you want exact representation of those values, consider using the Decimal module:
>>> import decimal
>>> decimal.Decimal('1.1')+decimal.Decimal('.1')
Decimal('1.2')
Note that you need to start with the string representation of your float, '0.1' since 0.1 is not exactly representable in binary in IEEE floating point:
>>> decimal.Decimal(.1)
Decimal('0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625')
To then get a string representation back after you calculate, you can use str:
>>> str(sum(map(decimal.Decimal,['.1','.1','.5','.5'])))
'1.2'
Another alternative is to use a rational number library such as Fractions:
>>> from fractions import Fraction as Fr
>>> Fr(11,10)+Fr(1,10)
Fraction(6, 5)
With that result, you will still need to round, truncate, or use an arbitrary precision arithmetic package to get an exact number (depending on the inputs...)
You can try string formatting, documentation here.
>>> "%0.2f" % float(1.1 + 0.1)
'1.20'
Or Even:
>>> "%0.1f" % float(1.1 + 0.1)
'1.2'
As to why, it is explicitly described on PEP 327 here.
This is the literal answer to your question:
float(str(1.1 + 0.1)[0:3])
If you're interested in the "why" of the problem then refer to the links provided in the question comments.
