How to use a decimal range() step value?

Question

Is there a way to step between 0 and 1 by 0.1?

I thought I could do it like the following, but it failed:

for i in range(0, 1, 0.1):
    print i

Instead, it says that the step argument cannot be zero, which I did not expect.

Answer 1

Similar to R's seq function, this one returns a sequence in any order given the correct step value. The last value is equal to the stop value.

def seq(start, stop, step=1):
    n = int(round((stop - start)/float(step)))
    if n > 1:
        return([start + step*i for i in range(n+1)])
    elif n == 1:
        return([start])
    else:
        return([])

Results

seq(1, 5, 0.5)

[1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0]

seq(10, 0, -1)

[10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]

seq(10, 0, -2)

[10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 0]

seq(1, 1)

[ 1 ]

Answer 2

For completeness of boutique, a functional solution:

def frange(a,b,s):
  return [] if s > 0 and a > b or s < 0 and a < b or s==0 else [a]+frange(a+s,b,s)

Answer 3

Best Solution: no rounding error
_________________________________________________________________________________

>>> step = .1
>>> N = 10     # number of data points
>>> [ x / pow(step, -1) for x in range(0, N + 1) ]

[0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0]

_________________________________________________________________________________

Or, for a set range instead of set data points (e.g. continuous function), use:

>>> step = .1
>>> rnge = 1     # NOTE range = 1, i.e. span of data points
>>> N = int(rnge / step
>>> [ x / pow(step,-1) for x in range(0, N + 1) ]

[0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0]

To implement a function: replace x / pow(step, -1) with f( x / pow(step, -1) ), and define f.
For example:

>>> import math
>>> def f(x):
        return math.sin(x)

>>> step = .1
>>> rnge = 1     # NOTE range = 1, i.e. span of data points
>>> N = int(rnge / step)
>>> [ f( x / pow(step,-1) ) for x in range(0, N + 1) ]

[0.0, 0.09983341664682815, 0.19866933079506122, 0.29552020666133955, 0.3894183423086505, 
 0.479425538604203, 0.5646424733950354, 0.644217687237691, 0.7173560908995228,
 0.7833269096274834, 0.8414709848078965]

Answer 4

[x * 0.1 for x in range(0, 10)] 

in Python 2.7x gives you the result of:

[0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.30000000000000004, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6000000000000001, 0.7000000000000001, 0.8, 0.9]

but if you use:

[ round(x * 0.1, 1) for x in range(0, 10)]

gives you the desired:

[0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9]

Answer 5

Here is my solution which works fine with float_range(-1, 0, 0.01) and works without floating point representation errors. It is not very fast, but works fine:

from decimal import Decimal

def get_multiplier(_from, _to, step):
    digits = []
    for number in [_from, _to, step]:
        pre = Decimal(str(number)) % 1
        digit = len(str(pre)) - 2
        digits.append(digit)
    max_digits = max(digits)
    return float(10 ** (max_digits))


def float_range(_from, _to, step, include=False):
    """Generates a range list of floating point values over the Range [start, stop]
       with step size step
       include=True - allows to include right value to if possible
       !! Works fine with floating point representation !!
    """
    mult = get_multiplier(_from, _to, step)
    # print mult
    int_from = int(round(_from * mult))
    int_to = int(round(_to * mult))
    int_step = int(round(step * mult))
    # print int_from,int_to,int_step
    if include:
        result = range(int_from, int_to + int_step, int_step)
        result = [r for r in result if r <= int_to]
    else:
        result = range(int_from, int_to, int_step)
    # print result
    float_result = [r / mult for r in result]
    return float_result


print float_range(-1, 0, 0.01,include=False)

assert float_range(1.01, 2.06, 5.05 % 1, True) ==\
[1.01, 1.06, 1.11, 1.16, 1.21, 1.26, 1.31, 1.36, 1.41, 1.46, 1.51, 1.56, 1.61, 1.66, 1.71, 1.76, 1.81, 1.86, 1.91, 1.96, 2.01, 2.06]

assert float_range(1.01, 2.06, 5.05 % 1, False)==\
[1.01, 1.06, 1.11, 1.16, 1.21, 1.26, 1.31, 1.36, 1.41, 1.46, 1.51, 1.56, 1.61, 1.66, 1.71, 1.76, 1.81, 1.86, 1.91, 1.96, 2.01]

Answer 6

more_itertools is a third-party library that implements a numeric_range tool:

import more_itertools as mit


for x in mit.numeric_range(0, 1, 0.1):
    print("{:.1f}".format(x))

Output

0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9

This tool also works for Decimal and Fraction.