returning float with all the numbers after period

Question

Wanted to ask, why 5 / 100 returns 0 , but it works with 5 * 0.01 , even though arithmetically both should return the same value?

even float(5 / 100) returns 0.0

first - you are using python 2; so write 5.0/100; float() does not work because first you get 0 and then get float - 0.0 — Drako, May 24 '18 at 12:56

Matias Cicero · Answer 1 · 2018-05-24T13:34:14.023

1

I'm guessing you are using Python 2.x, because 5 / 100 returns 0.05 on Python 3.x

To achieve the behavior you want on Python 2.x, you need to inherit this functionality:

from __future__ import division
print 5 / 100 # Yields 0.05

If you only want to do this just one time and not modify the interpreter default behavior, you can just cast one of the operands to float

print 5 / float(100) # Yields 0.05

edited May 24 '18 at 13:34

answered May 24 '18 at 12:57

Matias Cicero

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 24 '18 at 12:58

5/100 return 0 because you are dividing two integers, not floating point numbers. Division of any two integers will return an integer number.

Same reason for float(5/100). In this case you are first dividing two integers and then converting its result, which is integer 0, to floating point number.

If any of the number in the arithmetic operation is a floating point number, then the result would be also be a floating point number. For example, float(5)/100. This will return 0.05 because you are dividing a floating point number, i.e. float(5), by an integer 100.

returning float with all the numbers after period

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