math.ceil(0.5) returning different value from math.ceil(1/2)

Question

import math
print(math.ceil(0.5))

Returns

1.0

But

import math
print(math.ceil(1/2))

Returns

0.0

What's going on here? Explanation would be nice.

Possible duplicate of [How can I force division to be floating point in Python?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1267869/how-can-i-force-division-to-be-floating-point-in-python) — Marcus Müller, Aug 28 '16 at 18:31

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 28 '16 at 18:33

It seems you're running that code using python 2.x where you need to cast to float explicitely:

import math
print(math.ceil(0.5))
print(math.ceil(float(1) / float(2)))

If you run python 3.x you won't need to do that cast explicitely and you'll get the same output:

import math
print(math.ceil(0.5))
print(math.ceil(1 / 2))

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 28 '16 at 18:41

0

import math
print(math.ceil(1/float(2)))

answered Aug 28 '16 at 18:41

T T

This question is looking for an *explanation*, not simply for working code. Your answer provides no insight for the questioner, and may be deleted. Please [edit] to explain what cause's Oscar's observations. – Toby Speight Aug 29 '16 at 08:52

2 Answers2