682

I am getting a lot of decimals in the output of this code (Fahrenheit to Celsius converter).

My code currently looks like this:

def main(): printC(formeln(typeHere())) def typeHere(): global Fahrenheit try: Fahrenheit = int(raw_input("Hi! Enter Fahrenheit value, and get it in Celsius!\n")) except ValueError: print "\nYour insertion was not a digit!" print "We've put your Fahrenheit value to 50!" Fahrenheit = 50 return Fahrenheit def formeln(c): Celsius = (Fahrenheit - 32.00) * 5.00/9.00 return Celsius def printC(answer): answer = str(answer) print "\nYour Celsius value is " + answer + " C.\n" main() 

So my question is, how do I make the program round every answer to the 2nd decimal place?

1
  • 11
    A small remark regarding your code. There is no reason to have the Fahrenheit value kept as a global, it is enough (and better) to transmit it as a parameter to your functions. So, remove the "global Fahrenheit" line. In the formeln function, rename the parameter to the function "Fahreinheit" formeln(Fahreinheit). As for the rounding, you can just use the "%" parameters to display only the first 2 digits, and it should be rounded for these digits. There is no effect to the number of digits provided in the formula in formeln. Commented Dec 8, 2013 at 18:39

20 Answers 20

1116

You can use the round function, which takes as its first argument the number and the second argument is the precision after the decimal point.

In your case, it would be:

answer = str(round(answer, 2)) 
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11 Comments

note: this changes the value of answer. If you simply want to round for display, go with the answer of @Johnsyweb - stackoverflow.com/a/20457284/1498405
@Johnsyweb I'm trying it today, year's after original post and it looks working as expected. Seems round() evolved over time. See below: round(1.379, 2) -> 1.38 round(1.372, 2) -> 1.37 round(1.375, 2) -> 1.38
@NightFurry, you need to try 2.675, not 1.375. Still doesn't work with Python 3.8.2.
round(2.675,2) gives 2.67, because 2.675 cannot be represented exactly by computer as the nature of float number. Run from decimal import Decimal; Decimal.from_float(2.675) , you can find 2.675 is actually stored as 2.67499999999999982236431605997495353221893310546875. I found this link is useful.
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221

Using str.format()'s syntax to display answer with two decimal places (without altering the underlying value of answer):

def printC(answer): print("\nYour Celsius value is {:0.2f}ºC.\n".format(answer)) 

Where:

  • : introduces the format spec
  • 0 enables sign-aware zero-padding for numeric types
  • .2 sets the precision to 2
  • f displays the number as a fixed-point number

8 Comments

This is the most useful answer IMO - keeps the actual value intact and is simple to implement! Thanks!
@NoamPeled: Why shouldn't it? 0.5357... is closer to 0.54 than to 0.53, so rounding to 0.54 makes sense.
@Janothan floating point values are not precise. Try "{:0.20f}".format(1.755) and you'll see why the value with two decimal places is displayed as 1.75.
What does the sign-aware zero-padding here mean? I get that it'll be padded with leading zeros if the number is not long enough, but since there are no minimum length requirements here (like {:05.2f}), what does the zero do?
@jackz314 6.5 years (and many Python versions) after I wrote this answer, I forget why I thought the zero to be worth including.
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97

Most answers suggested round or format. round sometimes rounds up, and in my case I needed the value of my variable to be rounded down and not just displayed as such.

round(2.357, 2) # -> 2.36 

I found the answer here: How do I round a floating point number up to a certain decimal place?

import math v = 2.357 print(math.ceil(v*100)/100) # -> 2.36 print(math.floor(v*100)/100) # -> 2.35 

or:

from math import floor, ceil def roundDown(n, d=8): d = int('1' + ('0' * d)) return floor(n * d) / d def roundUp(n, d=8): d = int('1' + ('0' * d)) return ceil(n * d) / d 

5 Comments

"values are rounded to the closest multiple of 10 to the power minus ndigits;" docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#round so no, round does not always round up, e.g. round(2.354, 2) # -> 2.35
@PeteKirkham you are right, I edited my answer to make more sense and accurate.
Well, you should check your solution with negative values... math.floor(0.5357706*100)/100 -> 0.53 math.floor(-0.5357706*100)/100 -> -0.54
-0.54 is the correct answer for rounding -0.5357706 down because it is a negative number, -0.54 < -0.53
I would use 10**d instead of int('1' + ('0' * d)).
77

You can use the round function.

round(80.23456, 3) 

will give you an answer of 80.234

In your case, use

answer = str(round(answer, 2)) 

Comments

75

If you just want to print the rounded result out, you can use the f-strings introduced since Python 3.6. The syntax is the same as str.format()'s format string syntax, except you put a f in front of the literal string, and you put the variables directly in the string, within the curly braces.

.2f indicates rounding to two decimal places:

number = 3.1415926 print(f"The number rounded to two decimal places is {number:.2f}") 

Output:

The number rounded to two decimal places is 3.14 

3 Comments

This will round 39.555 to 39.55, which gives incorrect results if you expect the rounding to be 39.56
If anyone does not place the f after .2, a number like 14.426599999999999 will round to 1.4e+01. As far as Python 3.8.6
@martin36, this is not an incorrect result, since 39.555 cannot be represented exactly in floating-point format, so Python will actually store the number 39.554999999999999...., which is correctly rounded to 39.55. If someone expects it to be rounded to 39.56, then the expectations are wrong IMHO. When working with floating-point numbers, you should be aware of these "inaccuracies", and either accept them or choose a different data type.
21

You want to round your answer.

round(value,significantDigit) is the ordinary solution to do this, however this sometimes does not operate as one would expect from a math perspective when the digit immediately inferior (to the left of) the digit you're rounding to has a 5.

Here's some examples of this unpredictable behavior:

>>> round(1.0005,3) 1.0 >>> round(2.0005,3) 2.001 >>> round(3.0005,3) 3.001 >>> round(4.0005,3) 4.0 >>> round(1.005,2) 1.0 >>> round(5.005,2) 5.0 >>> round(6.005,2) 6.0 >>> round(7.005,2) 7.0 >>> round(3.005,2) 3.0 >>> round(8.005,2) 8.01 

Assuming your intent is to do the traditional rounding for statistics in the sciences, this is a handy wrapper to get the round function working as expected needing to import extra stuff like Decimal.

>>> round(0.075,2) 0.07 >>> round(0.075+10**(-2*6),2) 0.08 

Aha! So based on this we can make a function...

def roundTraditional(val,digits): return round(val+10**(-len(str(val))-1), digits) 

Basically this adds a really small value to the string to force it to round up properly on the unpredictable instances where it doesn't ordinarily with the round function when you expect it to. A convenient value to add is 1e-X where X is the length of the number string you're trying to use round on plus 1.

The approach of using 10**(-len(val)-1) was deliberate, as it the largest small number you can add to force the shift, while also ensuring that the value you add never changes the rounding even if the decimal . is missing. I could use just 10**(-len(val)) with a condiditional if (val>1) to subtract 1 more... but it's simpler to just always subtract the 1 as that won't change much the applicable range of decimal numbers this workaround can properly handle. This approach will fail if your values reaches the limits of the type, this will fail, but for nearly the entire range of valid decimal values it should work.

So the finished code will be something like:

def main(): printC(formeln(typeHere())) def roundTraditional(val,digits): return round(val+10**(-len(str(val))-1)) def typeHere(): global Fahrenheit try: Fahrenheit = int(raw_input("Hi! Enter Fahrenheit value, and get it in Celsius!\n")) except ValueError: print "\nYour insertion was not a digit!" print "We've put your Fahrenheit value to 50!" Fahrenheit = 50 return Fahrenheit def formeln(c): Celsius = (Fahrenheit - 32.00) * 5.00/9.00 return Celsius def printC(answer): answer = str(roundTraditional(answer,2)) print "\nYour Celsius value is " + answer + " C.\n" main() 

...should give you the results you expect.

You can also use the decimal library to accomplish this, but the wrapper I propose is simpler and may be preferred in some cases.


Edit: Thanks Blckknght for pointing out that the 5 fringe case occurs only for certain values here.

1 Comment

This doesn't work for negative numbers e.g -4.625 evaluates to -4.62. Can you modify it to work for negative numbers?
21

If you need avoid floating point problem on rounding numbers for accounting, you can use numpy round.

You need install numpy :

pip install numpy 

and the code :

import numpy as np print(round(2.675, 2)) print(float(np.round(2.675, 2))) 

prints

2.67 2.68 

You should use that if you manage money with legal rounding.

5 Comments

This does not work if the last digit is a 0. For example the number 39.90 will be rounded to 39.9
This method gives you a decimal value not a string. You should use @jackz314 if you want a string with the format you want
if running on pi, use the pi version: apt install python3-numpy
This doesn't work. np.round(2.665, 2) returns 2.66 while round(2.665, 2) returns 2.67. Here is my solution. stackoverflow.com/a/53329223/6069907
@SamuelDauzon Of course I tried it on my local. I got my result on python 3.7(win10) and numpy 1.19.3.
13
float(str(round(answer, 2))) float(str(round(0.0556781255, 2))) 

Comments

12

If you need not only round result but elso do math operations with round result, then you can use decimal.Decimal https://docs.python.org/2/library/decimal.html

from decimal import Decimal, ROUND_DOWN Decimal('7.325').quantize(Decimal('.01'), rounding=ROUND_DOWN) Decimal('7.32') 

Comments

11
from decimal import Decimal, ROUND_HALF_UP # Here are all your options for rounding: # This one offers the most out of the box control # ROUND_05UP ROUND_DOWN ROUND_HALF_DOWN ROUND_HALF_UP # ROUND_CEILING ROUND_FLOOR ROUND_HALF_EVEN ROUND_UP our_value = Decimal(16.0/7) output = Decimal(our_value.quantize(Decimal('.01'), rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP)) print output 

4 Comments

decimal is not a built-in function so it really should not be the accepted answer.
For traditional rounding, it shouldn't be the accepted answer.
Also, please always show the output...
@jwal it’s a built-in module.
9

Just use the formatting with %.2f which gives you rounding down to 2 decimals.

def printC(answer): print "\nYour Celsius value is %.2f C.\n" % answer 

Comments

9

You can use round operator for up to 2 decimal

num = round(343.5544, 2) print(num) // output is 343.55 

Comments

6

You can use the string formatting operator of python "%". "%.2f" means 2 digits after the decimal point.

def typeHere(): try: Fahrenheit = int(raw_input("Hi! Enter Fahrenheit value, and get it in Celsius!\n")) except ValueError: print "\nYour insertion was not a digit!" print "We've put your Fahrenheit value to 50!" Fahrenheit = 50 return Fahrenheit def formeln(Fahrenheit): Celsius = (Fahrenheit - 32.0) * 5.0/9.0 return Celsius def printC(answer): print "\nYour Celsius value is %.2f C.\n" % answer def main(): printC(formeln(typeHere())) main() 

http://docs.python.org/2/library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting

Comments

5

To avoid surprising value from round() this is my approche:

Round = lambda x, n: eval('"%.'+str(int(n))+'f" % '+repr(int(x)+round(float('.'+str(float(x)).split('.')[1]),n))) print(Round(2, 2)) # 2.00 print(Round(2.675, 2)) # 2.68 

2 Comments

Isn't working for 0.625.
Please explain what you're trying to solve (what's surprising) and what your lambda does.
4

Truncating to 2 digitis:

somefloat = 2.23134133 truncated = int( somefloat * 100 ) / 100 # 2.23 

Comments

2

Here is an example that I used:

def volume(self): return round(pi * self.radius ** 2 * self.height, 2) def surface_area(self): return round((2 * pi * self.radius * self.height) + (2 * pi * self.radius ** 2), 2) 

Comments

1
round(12.3956 - 0.005, 2) # minus 0.005, then round. 

The answer is from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/29651462/8025086

Comments

1

The easiest solution I found so far, dunno why people ain't using it.

# Make sure the number is a float a = 2324.55555 # Round it according to your needs # dPoints is the decimals after the point dPoints = 2 # this will round the float to 2 digits a = a.__round__(dPoints) if len(str(a).split(".")[1]) < dPoints: # But it will only keep one 0 if there is nothing, # So we add the extra 0s we need print(str(a)+("0"*(dPoints-1))) else: print(a) 

1 Comment

This is a complicated way to reimplement "%.2f" % a.
0

As you want your answer in decimal number so you dont need to typecast your answer variable to str in printC() function.

and then use printf-style String Formatting

Comments

0

Not sure why, but '{:0.2f}'.format(0.5357706) gives me '0.54'. The only solution that works for me (python 3.6) is the following:

def ceil_floor(x): import math return math.ceil(x) if x < 0 else math.floor(x) def round_n_digits(x, n): import math return ceil_floor(x * math.pow(10, n)) / math.pow(10, n) round_n_digits(-0.5357706, 2) -> -0.53 round_n_digits(0.5357706, 2) -> 0.53 

2 Comments

This is truncating, not rounding.
{:0.2f} rounded the value correctly. Your solution is not rounding.

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