hello to all,

how can I truncate a float to just 2 decimals before converting it to a string?

e.g. , I have float variables


if I convert these new values "f, g" into strings, e.g.

this surely works, but of course I always get all of the decimals - but I only need just 2 decimals for the string operations.

How can I do this float decimal truncation?

Ford,

You can exploit the truncation that happens when you cast a float to an int to accomplish that:

1) Multiply the float by 100
2) Cast it to an int (which will truncate the undesired fractional part)
3) Cast it back to a float
4) Divide by 100



For more (or less) digits, just alter the number you use for multiplying and dividing.

For this to work, your numbers need to be small enough that you don't overflow the int when multiplying by 100. If that's a problem, you should do something more like this:



It basically the same as what was above, except that it keeps the non-fractional part of the float out of multiplication operations -- allowing you to have bigger numbers without overflow.

hi,
thx a lot, it's fine.
I first thought.

But in fact, if you have
f=12.34567
and calculate with your formula
f = ((float)((int)(f * 100))) / 100;

you subsequently get f=12.34000, and
NOT: 12.34 <- this is what I needed!

I actually thought there should be a format function like ""%5.2f" as you use it as a format string in the printf command.
But your suggestion is fine, I'll take this, thx again!

Hi everyone!

I have two ideas. But since I am at the very beginning of using RobotC, they might be just stupid...

1) Is the 'string' data type just a normal array of characters terminated by a '0' char? If yes, you could type-cast the number that results from the idea of AvidProgrammer into a string variable and change the place of the string terminator:



---

2) Browsing the RobotC help, I found that there is a function called
StringFormat(sDest, sFmtSpec, nParm1, nParm2)
that might work.

Using this, the code would become much simpler:



---

Could you, Ford Prefect, please test these two ideas? I am curious to know if they would work... (I do not have access to my NXT right now...).

Best regards to you all,
Eduardo.

Internal float representation uses binary arithmetic. Decimal fractions do not always fit into nice "binary value" storage so you get the "artifacts" you're experiencing. No amount of "* 100" and "/ 100" will overcome this immutable fact.

Sorry.

I am sorry, Mr. Swan, but I can not understand your commentary. I have been a C/C++ scientific programmer for some years now, and nevertheless your point completely escapes me...

If all Ford Prefect wants is a string variable with the ASCII representation of a float truncated to 2 decimals, why would neither of my ideas work? I know my first idea would not work if string data types, in RobotC, are not null-terminated arrays of char (I really do not know if they are). But what is the problem with my second idea? Would rounding be the issue??

Please, elaborate on your last post. Thank you.

Best regards,
Eduardo.

Yes, you're right. If you want a float variable with just two decimal points in the string you can simply use standard "int" to "string" / "char" formating routines.

But that was not the request. It was "how can I truncate a float to just 2 decimals before converting it to a string?" which is a different problem. I'm not sure why you would need this, but that was the problem.

Internal binary representation of of numbers does not always allow for exact representation of decimal numbers and there is no way around this.

hello,
@Dick Swan: yes, that was my request. But actually that is exactly was the float-to-string-truncating function does:
first: round and truncate to 2 decimals,
second: convert to string

I wrote it that way because I wanted to avoid the other turn: first convert to string, and then truncate, because it's too fussy to find the decimal point in the string, count two decimals further, and than cut off the rest; beyond it, then there would be rounding mistakes.

EDIT:
and before that I wrote:

I didn't find the RobotC command for this, cause the correct C command is

=> would you be kind enough to use the original C commands, please? Your RobotC sometimes is too much kind of jabberwocky...

@Eduardo del Peloso:
thx, the code works fine!

the display shows:

sic: correctly rounded values!