How to check if a float value is a whole number

Question

I am trying to find the largest cube root that is a whole number, that is less than 12,000.

processing = True
n = 12000
while processing:
    n -= 1
    if n ** (1/3) == #checks to see if this has decimals or not

I am not sure how to check if it is a whole number or not though! I could convert it to a string then use indexing to check the end values and see whether they are zero or not, that seems rather cumbersome though. Is there a simpler way?

Answer 1

Wouldn't it be easier to test the cube roots? Start with 20 (20**3 = 8000) and go up to 30 (30**3 = 27000). Then you have to test fewer than 10 integers.

for i in range(20, 30):
    print("Trying {0}".format(i))
    if i ** 3 > 12000:
        print("Maximum integral cube root less than 12000: {0}".format(i - 1))
        break

Answer 2

The above answers work for many cases but they miss some. Consider the following:

fl = sum([0.1]*10)  # this is 0.9999999999999999, but we want to say it IS an int

Using this as a benchmark, some of the other suggestions don't get the behavior we might want:

fl.is_integer() # False

fl % 1 == 0     # False

Instead try:

def isclose(a, b, rel_tol=1e-09, abs_tol=0.0):
    return abs(a-b) <= max(rel_tol * max(abs(a), abs(b)), abs_tol)

def is_integer(fl):
    return isclose(fl, round(fl))

now we get:

is_integer(fl)   # True

isclose comes with Python 3.5+, and for other Python's you can use this mostly equivalent definition (as mentioned in the corresponding PEP)

Answer 3

Try using:

int(val) == val

It will give lot more precision than any other methods.

Answer 4

All the answers are good but a sure fire method would be

def whole (n):
     return (n*10)%10==0

The function returns True if it's a whole number else False....I know I'm a bit late but here's one of the interesting methods which I made...

Edit: as stated by the comment below, a cheaper equivalent test would be:

def whole(n):
    return n%1==0

Answer 5

We can use the modulo (%) operator. This tells us how many remainders we have when we divide x by y - expresses as x % y. Every whole number must divide by 1, so if there is a remainder, it must not be a whole number.

This function will return a boolean, True or False, depending on whether n is a whole number.

def is_whole(n):
    return n % 1 == 0

Answer 6

You can use the round function to compute the value.

Yes in python as many have pointed when we compute the value of a cube root, it will give you an output with a little bit of error. To check if the value is a whole number you can use the following function:

def cube_integer(n):
    if round(n**(1.0/3.0))**3 == n:
        return True
    return False

But remember that int(n) is equivalent to math.floor and because of this if you find the int(41063625**(1.0/3.0)) you will get 344 instead of 345.

So please be careful when using int withe cube roots.