This question already has an answer here:
-
Can someone explain this: 0.2 + 0.1 = 0.30000000000000004? [duplicate]
2 answers
I have written the following code for generating a range with floats:
def drange(start, stop, step):
result = []
value = start
while value <= stop:
result.append(value)
value += step
return result
When calling this function with this statement:
print drange(0.1,1.0,0.1)
I expected to obtain this:
[0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0]
But I obtain the following, instead:
[0.1, 0.2, 0.30000000000000004, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.7999999999999999, 0.8999999999999999, 0.9999999999999999]
Why is this?, and how can I fix it?
Thanks!
That's how floating-point numbers work. You can't represent an infinite number of real numbers in a finite number of bits, so there is some truncation. You should take a look at What Every Programmer Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic:
Why don’t my numbers, like 0.1 + 0.2 add up to a nice round 0.3, and instead I get a weird result like 0.30000000000000004?
Because internally, computers use a format (binary floating-point) that cannot accurately represent a number like 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 at all.
When the code is compiled or interpreted, your “0.1” is already rounded to the nearest number in that format, which results in a small rounding error even before the calculation happens.
Use round(number, k)
to round a given floating-point value to k
digits after the decimal (so in your case, use round(number, 1)
for one digit).