I was just re-readingWhat’s New In Python 3.0 and it states:
The
round()function rounding strategy and return type have changed.Exact halfway cases are now rounded to the nearest even result insteadof away from zero. (For example,round(2.5)now returns 2 rather than3.)
andthe documentation forround():
For the built-in types supporting
round(), values are rounded to theclosest multiple of 10 to the power minus n; if two multiples areequally close, rounding is done toward the even choice
So, inPython 2 (for example, v2.7.3) I get the expected:
round(2.5)3.0round(3.5)4.0However, now underPython 3 (for example v3.2.3):
round(2.5)2round(3.5)4This seems counter-intuitive and contrary to what I understand aboutrounding (and bound to trip up people). English isn't my native language but until I read this I thought I knew what rounding meant :-/ I am sureat the time Python 3 was introduced there must have been some discussion ofthis, but I was unable to find a good reason in my search.
- Does anyone have insight into why this was changed to this?
- Are there any other mainstream programming languages (e.g.,C, C++, Java, Perl, ..) that do this sort of (to me inconsistent) rounding?
What am I missing here?
UPDATE: @Li-aungYip's comment re "Banker's rounding" gave me the right search term/keywords to search for and I found this SO question:Why does .NET use banker's rounding as default?, so I will be reading that carefully.
- 34I don't have time to look this up, but I believe this is called "Banker's rounding". I believe it's common in the finance industry.Li-aung Yip– Li-aung Yip2012-05-31 00:21:44 +00:00CommentedMay 31, 2012 at 0:21
- 3@sberry well, yes, its behavior is consistent with its own description. So if it would say "rounding" is doubling its value and did it, it would also be consistent :) .. but it seems contrary to what rounding commonlymeans. So I'm looking for a better understanding.Levon– Levon2012-05-31 00:23:44 +00:00CommentedMay 31, 2012 at 0:23
- 7Just a note: Bankers rounding isn't common just in finance. This is how I was taught to round in elementary school already in the 70's :-)Lennart Regebro– Lennart Regebro2013-03-11 07:46:41 +00:00CommentedMar 11, 2013 at 7:46
- 5Boy it would be nice if
round()could just accept a separate argument to change the rounding behavior.pspahn– pspahn2022-03-30 21:55:43 +00:00CommentedMar 30, 2022 at 21:55 - 2@SirajAlam, that's because
340.33does not exist in floating point arithmetic. When you see340.33you're actually getting340.33499999999997953636921010911464691162109375which of course does round to340.33even under bankers rounding. Python puts in extra effort to display340.33even though it knows it isn't because it thinks that's what you want to see:docs.python.org/3/tutorial/floatingpoint.html To find out what number you really have when you enter a float you canfrom decimal import Decimaland thenDecimal(340.33).NeilG– NeilG2023-03-17 00:03:37 +00:00CommentedMar 17, 2023 at 0:03
13 Answers13
Python 3's way (called "round half to even" or "banker's rounding") is considered the standard rounding method these days, though some language implementations aren't on the bus yet.
The simple "always round 0.5 up" technique results in a slight bias toward the higher number. With large numbers of calculations, this can be significant. The Python 3 approach eliminates this issue.
There is more than one method of rounding in common use. IEEE 754, the international standard for floating-point math, definesfive different rounding methods (the one used by Python 3 is the default). Andthere are others.
This behavior is not as widely known as it ought to be. AppleScript was, if I remember correctly, an early adopter of this rounding method. Theround command in AppleScript offers several options, but round-toward-even is the default as it is in IEEE 754. Apparently the engineer who implemented theround command got so fed up with all the requests to "make it work like I learned in school" that he implemented just that:round 2.5 rounding as taught in school is a valid AppleScript command. :-)
17 Comments
3 for2.5.roundYou can control the rounding you get in Py3000 using theDecimal module:
>>> decimal.Decimal('3.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'), rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_UP)>>> Decimal('4')>>> decimal.Decimal('2.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'), rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_EVEN)>>> Decimal('2')>>> decimal.Decimal('3.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'), rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_DOWN)>>> Decimal('3')5 Comments
ROUND_HALF_UP is the same as Python 2.X's old behavior.setcontext() function.quantize(decimal.Decimal('1') toquantize(decimal.Decimal('0.00') if you want to round to nearest 100s such as for money.round(number, ndigits) as long asndigits is positive, but annoyingly you cannot use it to replace something likeround(5, -1).Just to add here an important note from documentation:
https://docs.python.org/dev/library/functions.html#round
Note
The behavior of round() for floats can be surprising: for example, round(2.675, 2) gives 2.67 instead of the expected 2.68. This is not a bug: it’s a result of the fact that most decimal fractions can’t be represented exactly as a float. See Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations for more information.
So don't be surprised to get following results in Python 3.2:
>>> round(0.25,1), round(0.35,1), round(0.45,1), round(0.55,1)(0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.6)>>> round(0.025,2), round(0.035,2), round(0.045,2), round(0.055,2)(0.03, 0.04, 0.04, 0.06)5 Comments
2.675 exactly: the closest the computer can get is2.67499999999999982236431605997495353221893310546875. That's pretty close, but it's notexactly equal to2.675: it'svery slightly closer to2.67 than to2.68. So theround function does the right thing, and rounds it to the closer 2-digit-after-the-point value, namely2.67. This has nothing to do with Python, and everything to do with binary floating-point.fractions module or thedecimal module in the Python standard library to do exact calculations with fractions and decimal numbers.Python 3.x rounds .5 values to a neighbour which is even
assert round(0.5) == 0assert round(1.5) == 2assert round(2.5) == 2import decimalassert decimal.Decimal('0.5').to_integral_value() == 0assert decimal.Decimal('1.5').to_integral_value() == 2assert decimal.Decimal('2.5').to_integral_value() == 2however, one can change decimal rounding "back" to always round .5 up, if needed :
decimal.getcontext().rounding = decimal.ROUND_HALF_UPassert decimal.Decimal('0.5').to_integral_value() == 1assert decimal.Decimal('1.5').to_integral_value() == 2assert decimal.Decimal('2.5').to_integral_value() == 3i = int(decimal.Decimal('2.5').to_integral_value()) # to get an intassert i == 3assert type(i) is intComments
I recently had problems with this, too. Hence, I have developed a python 3 module that has 2 functionstrueround() andtrueround_precision() that address this and give the same rounding behaviour we are used to from primary school (not banker's rounding). Here is the module. Just save the code and copy it in or import it.
Note: the trueround_precision module can change the rounding behaviour depending on needs according to the ROUND_CEILING, ROUND_DOWN, ROUND_FLOOR, ROUND_HALF_DOWN, ROUND_HALF_EVEN, ROUND_HALF_UP, ROUND_UP, and ROUND_05UP flags in the decimal module (see that modules documentation for more info). For the functions below, see the docstrings or usehelp(trueround) andhelp(trueround_precision) if copied into an interpreter for further documentation.
#! /usr/bin/env python3# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-def trueround(number, places=0): ''' trueround(number, places) example: >>> trueround(2.55, 1) == 2.6 True uses standard functions with no import to give "normal" behavior to rounding so that trueround(2.5) == 3, trueround(3.5) == 4, trueround(4.5) == 5, etc. Use with caution, however. This still has the same problem with floating point math. The return object will be type int if places=0 or a float if places=>1. number is the floating point number needed rounding places is the number of decimal places to round to with '0' as the default which will actually return our interger. Otherwise, a floating point will be returned to the given decimal place. Note: Use trueround_precision() if true precision with floats is needed GPL 2.0 copywrite by Narnie Harshoe <[email protected]> ''' place = 10**(places) rounded = (int(number*place + 0.5if number>=0 else -0.5))/place if rounded == int(rounded): rounded = int(rounded) return roundeddef trueround_precision(number, places=0, rounding=None): ''' trueround_precision(number, places, rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP) Uses true precision for floating numbers using the 'decimal' module in python and assumes the module has already been imported before calling this function. The return object is of type Decimal. All rounding options are available from the decimal module including ROUND_CEILING, ROUND_DOWN, ROUND_FLOOR, ROUND_HALF_DOWN, ROUND_HALF_EVEN, ROUND_HALF_UP, ROUND_UP, and ROUND_05UP. examples: >>> trueround(2.5, 0) == Decimal('3') True >>> trueround(2.5, 0, ROUND_DOWN) == Decimal('2') True number is a floating point number or a string type containing a number on on which to be acted. places is the number of decimal places to round to with '0' as the default. Note: if type float is passed as the first argument to the function, it will first be converted to a str type for correct rounding. GPL 2.0 copywrite by Narnie Harshoe <[email protected]> ''' from decimal import Decimal as dec from decimal import ROUND_HALF_UP from decimal import ROUND_CEILING from decimal import ROUND_DOWN from decimal import ROUND_FLOOR from decimal import ROUND_HALF_DOWN from decimal import ROUND_HALF_EVEN from decimal import ROUND_UP from decimal import ROUND_05UP if type(number) == type(float()): number = str(number) if rounding == None: rounding = ROUND_HALF_UP place = '1.' for i in range(places): place = ''.join([place, '0']) return dec(number).quantize(dec(place), rounding=rounding)Comments
Python 2 rounding behaviour in python 3.
Adding 1 at the 15th decimal places.Accuracy upto 15 digits.
round2=lambda x,y=None: round(x+1e-15,y)Not right for 175.57. For that it should be added in the 13th decimal place as the number is grown. Switching to Decimal is better than reinventing the same wheel.
from decimal import Decimal, ROUND_HALF_UPdef round2(x, y=2): prec = Decimal(10) ** -y return float(Decimal(str(round(x,3))).quantize(prec, rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP))Not used y
4 Comments
2.675 is2.67499999999999982236431605997495353221893310546875. Adding 1e-15 will tip it over 2.675 and get it rounded correctly. if the fraction is already over the code constant, adding 1e-15 will change nothing to the rounding.3.46//0.01==345 but(3.46+1E-15)//0.01==346 as wantedSome cases:
in: Decimal(75.29 / 2).quantize(Decimal('0.01'), rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP)in: round(75.29 / 2, 2)out: 37.65 GOODin: Decimal(85.55 / 2).quantize(Decimal('0.01'), rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP)in: round(85.55 / 2, 2)out: 42.77 BADFor fix:
in: round(75.29 / 2 + 0.00001, 2)out: 37.65 GOODin: round(85.55 / 2 + 0.00001, 2)out: 42.78 GOODIf you want more decimals, for example 4, you should add (+ 0.0000001).
Work for me.
1 Comment
Sample Reproduction:
['{} => {}'.format(x+0.5, round(x+0.5)) for x in range(10)]['0.5 => 0', '1.5 => 2', '2.5 => 2', '3.5 => 4', '4.5 => 4', '5.5 => 6', '6.5 => 6', '7.5 => 8', '8.5 => 8', '9.5 => 10']API:https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#round
States:
Return number rounded to ndigits precision after the decimal point. If ndigits is omitted or is None, it returns the nearest integer to its input.
For the built-in types supporting round(), values are rounded to the closest multiple of 10 to the power minus ndigits; if two multiples are equally close, rounding is done toward the even choice (so, for example, both round(0.5) and round(-0.5) are 0, and round(1.5) is 2). Any integer value is valid for ndigits (positive, zero, or negative). The return value is an integer if ndigits is omitted or None. Otherwise the return value has the same type as number.
For a general Python object number, round delegates to number.round.
Note The behavior of round() for floats can be surprising: for example, round(2.675, 2) gives 2.67 instead of the expected 2.68. This is not a bug: it’s a result of the fact that most decimal fractions can’t be represented exactly as a float. See Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations for more information.
Given this insight you can use some math to resolve it
import mathdef my_round(i): f = math.floor(i) return f if i - f < 0.5 else f+1now you can run the same test with my_round instead of round.
['{} => {}'.format(x + 0.5, my_round(x+0.5)) for x in range(10)]['0.5 => 1', '1.5 => 2', '2.5 => 3', '3.5 => 4', '4.5 => 5', '5.5 => 6', '6.5 => 7', '7.5 => 8', '8.5 => 9', '9.5 => 10']Comments
I propose custom function which would work for a DataFrame:
def dfCustomRound(df, dec): d = 1 / 10 ** dec df = round(df, dec + 2) return (((df % (1 * d)) == 0.5 * d).astype(int) * 0.1 * d * np.sign(df) + df).round(dec)Comments
without Decimal,
def my_round(x: float, precision: int = 2): tmp = round(x, precision) if x == tmp + float('0.' + '0' * precision + '5'): return round(x + float('0.' + '0' * precision + '1'), precision) return tmpComments
# round module within numpy when decimal is X.5 will give desired (X+1)import numpy as npexample_of_some_variable = 3.5rounded_result_of_variable = np.round(example_of_some_variable,0)print (rounded_result_of_variable)2 Comments
print(np.round(2.5,0)) prints2.0, as expected for the IEEE-754 default FP rounding mode, which is nearest with even as a tie-break, not away-from-zero or the towards +Inf you'r claiming.Try this code:
def roundup(input): demo = input if str(input)[-1] != "5" else str(input).replace("5","6") place = len(demo.split(".")[1])-1 return(round(float(demo),place))The result will be:
>>> x = roundup(2.5)>>> x3.0 >>> x = roundup(2.05)>>> x2.1 >>> x = roundup(2.005)>>> x2.01Ooutput you can check here:https://i.sstatic.net/QQUkS.png
Comments
You can control the rounding you using the math.ceil module:
import mathprint(math.ceil(2.5))> 35 Comments
math.trunc(3.9) is3,math.trunc(-3.9) is-3.floor rounds towards -Inf,ceil rounds towards +Infinity.Explore related questions
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