problem with floats and calculations

[Mark Lawrence]

[fix top posting]
> Karsten Goen <karsten.goen at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> hey all,
>>> I got a problem with floats and calculations. I made an mini-application
>> where
>>> you get random questions with some science calculations in it
>>> So the user can type in his result with the values given by random
>> creation.
>>> And the user value is compared against the computer value... the problem
>> is
>>> that the user input is only 2 numbers behind the '.' so like 1.42, 1.75
>>>
>>> here is the example:
>>> http://dpaste.com/hold/158698/
>>>
>>> without decimal it would be very inaccurate. decimal is very accurate
>> when I
>>> have to compare d with users calculations from a,b,c,var.
>>> But when I ask the user what is "a" the result gets inaccurate when
>> calculating
>>> with the same values given before (b,c,d,var).
>>>
>>> Maybe anyone can help me with this problem, I don't want to generate for
>> every
>>> possible user input a single formula. And also it should be possible for
>> a
>>> computer, my calculator at home does the same and is much smaller and
>> slower.
>>
>> d = (a * b)/ (c * var)
>> d = Decimal(d).quantize(Decimal('0.01'))
>>
>> By quantizing d, the above equality does not hold any longer. You've got
>> to drop that line (your calculator doesn't quantize either).
>>
>>
>> Stefan Krah
>>
> 

Karsten Goen wrote:
 > also this doesn't help, there are still errors in the accuracy. Isn't 
there
 > a perfect way to do such calculations?
 >

Please read the following and see if it helps.  Also search the python 
users mailing list for something like floating point accuracy, you'll 
get plenty of hits.

http://docs.python.org/tutorial/floatingpoint.html

Regards.

Mark Lawrence