[Tutor] base n fractional

[Chris Castillo]

yes that was what I was looking for. And the reason I am using the loop is
the teacher I am currently taking wants us to fully comprehend iteration for
the material we are covering in the class. Thank you for your help though, I
definitely see where I was going wrong with it.

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Dave Angel <davea at ieee.org> wrote:

> Chris Castillo wrote:
>
>  Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 15:36:09 -0500
>> From: Chris Castillo <ctcast at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Tutor] base n fractional
>> To: tutor at python.org
>> Message-ID:
>>        <50e459210904051336v60dfc6ddt280d3c9c8f6e035b at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> I need some help converting the fractional (right side of the decimal) to
>> base 10.
>> I have this but it doesn't work
>>
>> mynum = raw_input("Please enter a number: ")
>> myint, myfrac = mynum.split(".")
>> base = raw_input("Please enter the base you would like to convert to: ")
>> base = int(base)
>> mydecfrac = 0
>> fraclen = len(myfrac) - 1
>>
>> for digit in range(len(myfrac) -1, -1, -1):
>>    mydecfrac = mydecfrac + int(myfrac[digit])
>>    mydecfrac = mydecfrac / base
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>>
> First we need a clear statement (with examples) of your goal.  Your prompts
> to the user indicate you want to convert from decimal to some other base.
>  But your comments here and elsewhere on the thread indicate the exact
> opposite.  The two problems are related, but mixing them will just confuse
> everybody.
>
>  so when I say that to myself i see:
>> number = 234
>> mysum = 0
>> for digit in range(len(number) -1, -1, -1):
>>   mysum = (mysum) * (1/base) + int(number[digit])
>>
>
> This just isn't valid python.  You can't subscript an integer.  You
> probably need a string here.  That is what raw_input() would produce.
>
> So let's get a specific example, and try to work with it.
>
>
> Perhaps you want
>   base = 5
>  myfrac = "234"
>
> and you want to figure the value that .234 would mean if it's interpreted
> as base 5.  First, let's do it by hand.
>  The two is in the first digit to the right of the decimal place, and
> therefore represents 2/5
>  The three is in the next place, and represents 3/25
>  And the four is in the next place and represents 4/125
> Result is 0.552 decimal
>
> There are two ways to work a base conversion.  One is to do the arithmetic
> in the source base, and do successive multiplies of the destination base.
>  That would mean working in base 5 in this case, which is probably more work
> in Python.  The other is to work in the result base, and do the multiplies
> of the source base.  That's the approach you were taking, and it works great
> if the precision of a float is acceptable.
>
>
> Your code is fine, although a bit convoluted.  Only problem is that you're
> working in integers, when you need float.  So just change mydecfrac to 0.0
>  and it'll work.
>
>
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