Please disregard my ineptly posed question. ~K
In <i0l9f3$7d...@reader1.panix.com> kj <no.em...@please.post> writes: >I define >ninv = 1.0/n >...where n is some integer, and I want to write some function f such >that f(m * ninv) returns the smallest integer that is >= m * ninv, >where m is some other integer. And, in particular, if m is p*n >for some integer p, then f((p*n) * ninv) should return the integer >p. >The first solution that comes to mind is something like >def f(x): > return int(math.ceil(x)) >At first this seems to work: >>>> f((7*2) * (1.0/2)) >7 >>>> f((7*3) * (1.0/3)) >7 >...but there are values of n for which it fails: >>>> f((7*75) * (1.0/75)) >8 >The problem here is that, due to numerical error, the expression >((7*75) * (1.0/75)) evaluates to a number *just* above 7. The >surrounding math.ceil then turns this into 8.0, etc. >Is there a way to define f so that it behaves as expected? >TIA! >~K -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list