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Rounding a float number in python

I have a float numer
a = 1.263597
I hope get
b = 1.2635
But when I try
round (a,4)
then result is
1.2636
What should I do?

Try math.floor with this small modification -
import math
def floor_rounded(n,d):
return math.floor(n*10**d)/10**d
n = 1.263597
d = 4
output = floor_rounded(n,d)
print(output)
1.2635
For your example, you can just do math.floor(1.263597 * 10000)/10000
EDIT: Based on the valid comment by #Mark, here is another way of solving this, but this time forcing the custom rounding using string operations.
#EDIT: Alternate approach, based on the comment by Mark Dickinson
def string_rounded(n,d):
i,j = str(n).split('.')
return float(i+'.'+j[:d])
n = 8.04
d = 2
output = string_rounded(n,d)
output
8.04

Plain Python without importing any libraries (even not standard libraries):
def round_down(number, ndigits=None):
if ndigits is None or ndigits == 0:
# Return an integer if ndigits is 0
return int(number)
else:
return int(number * 10**ndigits) / 10**ndigits
a = 1.263597
b = round_down(a, 4)
print(b)
1.2635
Note that this function rounds towards zero, i.e. it rounds down positive floats and rounds up negative floats.

def round_down(number, ndigits=0):
return round(number-0.5/pow(10, ndigits), ndigits)
Run:
round_down(1.263597, 4)
>> 1.2635

How to remove last decimal digit from float in python?

Say I have an arbitrary float x = 123.123456 and want to remove the last n decimal digits from the float i.e. n = 1 then x = 123.12345, n = 2 then x = 123.1234 and so on. How can this be achieved in python?

This will do the trick you are asking, but be mindful of the issues with floating point numbers.
# let's cut 2 digits
n = 2
# naively we can do this
f = 123.123456
short_f = float(str(f)[:-n])
# but watch out for floating point error
f = 1.2 - 1.0 # f should be 0.2 but is actually 0.19999999999999996
short_f = float(str(f)[:-n]) # so this gives 0.199999999999999
This sounds like an XY problem, maybe you are looking for round or string formatting.

Python: How to round numbers smaller than 1 adaptively with specified precision?

I usually use
x = round(x, 3)
to round a number to the precision of 3 digits. Now I have this array:
[-1.10882605e-04 -2.01874994e-05 3.24209095e-05 -1.56917988e-05
-4.61406358e-05 1.99080610e-05 7.04079594e-05 2.64600122e-05
-3.53022316e-05 1.50542793e-05]
And using the same code just flattens everything down to 0. What I would like to have though is a function that gives me the most significant 3 digits rounded like it usually works for numbers larger than 1. Like this:
special_round(0.00034567, 3)
=
0.000346
Any idea how this could be done? Thanks!

Here is a solution that figures out the order of magnitude and does an elment wise rounding.
Note that this will only work correctly for values < 1 and > -1, which I guess is a valid assumption regarding your example data.
import numpy as np
a = np.array([-1.10882605e-04, -2.01874994e-05, 3.24209095e-05, -1.56917988e-05,
-4.61406358e-05, 1.99080610e-05, 7.04079594e-05 , 2.64600122e-05,
-3.53022316e-05 , 1.50542793e-05])
def special_round(vec):
exponents = np.floor(np.log10(np.abs(vec))).astype(int)
return np.stack([np.round(v, decimals=-e+3) for v, e in zip(vec, exponents)])
b = special_round(a)
>>> array([-1.109e-04, -2.019e-05, 3.242e-05, -1.569e-05, -4.614e-05,
1.991e-05, 7.041e-05, 2.646e-05, -3.530e-05, 1.505e-05])

Problem is, numbers you provided are starting to be so small that you are approaching limit of floating point precision, thus some artifacts show up seemingly for no reason.
def special_round(number, precision):
negative = number < 0
number = abs(number)
i = 0
while number <= 1 or number >= 10:
if number <= 1:
i += 1
number *= 10
else:
i += -1
number /= 10
rounded = round(number, precision)
if negative:
rounded = -rounded
return rounded * (10 ** -i)
Output:
[-0.0001109, -2.019e-05, 3.2420000000000005e-05, -1.569e-05, -4.614e-05, 1.9910000000000004e-05, 7.041000000000001e-05, 2.646e-05, -3.5300000000000004e-05, 1.505e-05]

You can do so by creating a specific function using the math package:
from math import log10 , floor
import numpy as np
def round_it(x, sig):
return round(x, sig-int(floor(log10(abs(x))))-1)
a = np.array([-1.10882605e-04, -2.01874994e-05, 3.24209095e-05, -1.56917988e-05,
-4.61406358e-05, 1.99080610e-05, 7.04079594e-05, 2.64600122e-05,
-3.53022316e-05, 1.50542793e-05])
round_it_np = np.vectorize(round_it) # vectorize the function to apply on numpy array
round_it_np(a, 3) # 3 is rounding with 3 significant digits
This will result in
array([-1.11e-04, -2.02e-05, 3.24e-05, -1.57e-05, -4.61e-05, 1.99e-05,
7.04e-05, 2.65e-05, -3.53e-05, 1.51e-05])

Here is a solution:
from math import log10, ceil
def special_round(x, n) :
lx = log10(abs(x))
if lx >= 0 : return round(x, n)
return round(x, n-ceil(lx))
for x in [10.23456, 1.23456, 0.23456, 0.023456, 0.0023456] :
print (x, special_round(x, 3))
print (-x, special_round(-x, 3))
Output:
10.23456 10.235
-10.23456 -10.235
1.23456 1.235
-1.23456 -1.235
0.23456 0.235
-0.23456 -0.235
0.023456 0.0235
-0.023456 -0.0235
0.0023456 0.00235
-0.0023456 -0.00235

You can use the common logarithm (provided by the built-in math module) to calculate the position of the first significant digit in your number (with 2 representing the hundreds, 1 representing the tens, 0 representing the ones, -1 representing the 0.x, -2 representing the 0.0x and so on...). Knowing the position of the first significant digit, you can use it to properly round the number.
import math
def special_round(n, significant_digits=0):
first_significant_digit = math.ceil((math.log10(abs(n))))
round_digits = significant_digits - first_significant_digit
return round(n, round_digits)
>>> special_round(0.00034567, 3)
>>> 0.000346

I am attempting to print only a selected amount of Pi, it returns with an error of "Decimal has no attribute: __getitem__

def pi():
prompt=">>> "
print "\nWARNING: Pi may take some time to be calculated and may not always be correct beyond 100 digits."
print "\nShow Pi to what digit?"
n=raw_input(prompt)
from decimal import Decimal, localcontext
with localcontext() as ctx:
ctx.prec = 10000
pi = Decimal(0)
for k in range(350):
pi += (Decimal(4)/(Decimal(8)*k+1) - Decimal(2)/(Decimal(8)*k+4) - Decimal(1)/(Decimal(8)*k+5) - Decimal(1)/(Decimal(8)*k+6)) / Decimal(16)**k
print pi[:int(n)]
pi()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/patrickcook/Documents/Pi", line 13, in <module>
pi()
File "/Users/patrickcook/Documents/Pi", line 12, in pi
print pi[:int(n)]
TypeError: 'Decimal' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

If you'd like a faster pi algorithm, try this one. I've never used the Decimal module before; I normally use mpmath for arbitrary precision calculations, which comes with lots of functions, and built-in "constants" for pi and e. But I guess Decimal is handy because it's a standard module.
''' The Salamin / Brent / Gauss Arithmetic-Geometric Mean pi formula.
Let A[0] = 1, B[0] = 1/Sqrt(2)
Then iterate from 1 to 'n'.
A[n] = (A[n-1] + B[n-1])/2
B[n] = Sqrt(A[n-1]*B[n-1])
C[n] = (A[n-1]-B[n-1])/2
PI[n] = 4A[n+1]^2 / (1-(Sum (for j=1 to n; 2^(j+1))*C[j]^2))
See http://stackoverflow.com/q/26477866/4014959
Written by PM 2Ring 2008.10.19
Converted to use Decimal 2014.10.21
Converted to Python 3 2018.07.17
'''
import sys
from decimal import Decimal as D, getcontext, ROUND_DOWN
def AGM_pi(m):
a, b = D(1), D(2).sqrt() / 2
s, k = D(0), D(4)
for i in range(m):
c = (a - b) / 2
a, b = (a + b) / 2, (a * b).sqrt()
s += k * c * c
#In case we want to see intermediate results
#if False:
#pi = 4 * a * a / (1 - s)
#print("%2d:\n%s\n" % (i, pi))
k *= 2
return 4 * a * a / (1 - s)
def main():
prec = int(sys.argv[1]) if len(sys.argv) > 1 else 50
#Add 1 for the digit before the decimal point,
#plus a few more to compensate for rounding errors.
#delta == 7 handles the Feynman point, which has six 9s followed by an 8
delta = 3
prec += 1 + delta
ctx = getcontext()
ctx.prec = prec
#The precision of the AGM value doubles on every loop
pi = AGM_pi(prec.bit_length())
#Round down so all printed digits are (usually) correct
ctx.rounding = ROUND_DOWN
ctx.prec -= delta
print("pi ~=\n%s" % +pi)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

You are trying to treat pi as an array, when it is a Decimal. I think you are looking for quantize:https://docs.python.org/2/library/decimal.html

I got bored with how long the process it was taking (that 350-iteration loop is a killer), but the answer seems plain. A Decimal object is not subscriptable the way you have it.
You probably want to turn it into a string first and then process that to get the digits:
print str(pi)[:int(n)+1] # ignore decimal point in digit count.
You should also keep in mind that this truncates the value rather than rounding it. For example, with PI starting out as:
3.141592653589
(about as much as I can remember off the top of my head), truncating the string at five significant digits will give you 3.1415 rather than the more correct 3.1416.

A Decimal object can't be sliced to get the individual digits. However a string can, so convert it to a string first.
print str(pi)[:int(n)]
You may need to adjust n for the decimal point and desired digit range.

Python Decimal - engineering notation for mili (10e-3) and micro (10e-6)

Here is the example which is bothering me:
>>> x = decimal.Decimal('0.0001')
>>> print x.normalize()
>>> print x.normalize().to_eng_string()
0.0001
0.0001
Is there a way to have engineering notation for representing mili (10e-3) and micro (10e-6)?

Here's a function that does things explicitly, and also has support for using SI suffixes for the exponent:
def eng_string( x, format='%s', si=False):
'''
Returns float/int value <x> formatted in a simplified engineering format -
using an exponent that is a multiple of 3.
format: printf-style string used to format the value before the exponent.
si: if true, use SI suffix for exponent, e.g. k instead of e3, n instead of
e-9 etc.
E.g. with format='%.2f':
1.23e-08 => 12.30e-9
123 => 123.00
1230.0 => 1.23e3
-1230000.0 => -1.23e6
and with si=True:
1230.0 => 1.23k
-1230000.0 => -1.23M
'''
sign = ''
if x < 0:
x = -x
sign = '-'
exp = int( math.floor( math.log10( x)))
exp3 = exp - ( exp % 3)
x3 = x / ( 10 ** exp3)
if si and exp3 >= -24 and exp3 <= 24 and exp3 != 0:
exp3_text = 'yzafpnum kMGTPEZY'[ ( exp3 - (-24)) / 3]
elif exp3 == 0:
exp3_text = ''
else:
exp3_text = 'e%s' % exp3
return ( '%s'+format+'%s') % ( sign, x3, exp3_text)

EDIT:
Matplotlib implemented the engineering formatter, so one option is to directly use Matplotlibs formatter, e.g.:
import matplotlib as mpl
formatter = mpl.ticker.EngFormatter()
formatter(10000)
result: '10 k'
Original answer:
Based on Julian Smith's excellent answer (and this answer), I changed the function to improve on the following points:
Python3 compatible (integer division)
Compatible for 0 input
Rounding to significant number of digits, by default 3, no trailing zeros printed
so here's the updated function:
import math
def eng_string( x, sig_figs=3, si=True):
"""
Returns float/int value <x> formatted in a simplified engineering format -
using an exponent that is a multiple of 3.
sig_figs: number of significant figures
si: if true, use SI suffix for exponent, e.g. k instead of e3, n instead of
e-9 etc.
"""
x = float(x)
sign = ''
if x < 0:
x = -x
sign = '-'
if x == 0:
exp = 0
exp3 = 0
x3 = 0
else:
exp = int(math.floor(math.log10( x )))
exp3 = exp - ( exp % 3)
x3 = x / ( 10 ** exp3)
x3 = round( x3, -int( math.floor(math.log10( x3 )) - (sig_figs-1)) )
if x3 == int(x3): # prevent from displaying .0
x3 = int(x3)
if si and exp3 >= -24 and exp3 <= 24 and exp3 != 0:
exp3_text = 'yzafpnum kMGTPEZY'[ exp3 // 3 + 8]
elif exp3 == 0:
exp3_text = ''
else:
exp3_text = 'e%s' % exp3
return ( '%s%s%s') % ( sign, x3, exp3_text)

The decimal module is following the Decimal Arithmetic Specification, which states:
This is outdated - see below
to-scientific-string – conversion to numeric string
[...]
The coefficient is first converted to a string in base ten using the characters 0 through 9 with no leading zeros (except if its value is zero, in which case a single 0 character is used).
Next, the adjusted exponent is calculated; this is the exponent, plus the number of characters in the converted coefficient, less one. That is, exponent+(clength-1), where clength is the length of the coefficient in decimal digits.
If the exponent is less than or equal to zero and the adjusted exponent is greater than or equal to -6, the number will be converted
to a character form without using exponential notation.
[...]
to-engineering-string – conversion to numeric string
This operation converts a number to a string, using engineering
notation if an exponent is needed.
The conversion exactly follows the rules for conversion to scientific
numeric string except in the case of finite numbers where exponential
notation is used. In this case, the converted exponent is adjusted to be a multiple of three (engineering notation) by positioning the decimal point with one, two, or three characters preceding it (that is, the part before the decimal point will range from 1 through 999).
This may require the addition of either one or two trailing zeros.
If after the adjustment the decimal point would not be followed by a digit then it is not added. If the final exponent is zero then no indicator letter and exponent is suffixed.
Examples:
For each abstract representation [sign, coefficient, exponent] on the left, the resulting string is shown on the right.
Representation
String
[0,123,1]
"1.23E+3"
[0,123,3]
"123E+3"
[0,123,-10]
"12.3E-9"
[1,123,-12]
"-123E-12"
[0,7,-7]
"700E-9"
[0,7,1]
"70"
Or, in other words:
>>> for n in (10 ** e for e in range(-1, -8, -1)):
... d = Decimal(str(n))
... print d.to_eng_string()
...
0.1
0.01
0.001
0.0001
0.00001
0.000001
100E-9

I realize that this is an old thread, but it does come near the top of a search for python engineering notation and it seems prudent to have this information located here.
I am an engineer who likes the "engineering 101" engineering units. I don't even like designations such as 0.1uF, I want that to read 100nF. I played with the Decimal class and didn't really like its behavior over the range of possible values, so I rolled a package called engineering_notation that is pip-installable.
pip install engineering_notation
From within Python:
>>> from engineering_notation import EngNumber
>>> EngNumber('1000000')
1M
>>> EngNumber(1000000)
1M
>>> EngNumber(1000000.0)
1M
>>> EngNumber('0.1u')
100n
>>> EngNumber('1000m')
1
This package also supports comparisons and other simple numerical operations.
https://github.com/slightlynybbled/engineering_notation

The «full» quote shows what is wrong!
The decimal module is indeed following the proprietary (IBM) Decimal Arithmetic Specification.
Quoting this IBM specification in its entirety clearly shows what is wrong with decimal.to_eng_string() (emphasis added):
to-engineering-string – conversion to numeric string
This operation converts a number to a string, using engineering
notation if an exponent is needed.
The conversion exactly follows the rules for conversion to scientific
numeric string except in the case of finite numbers where exponential
notation is used. In this case, the converted exponent is adjusted to be a multiple of three (engineering notation) by positioning the decimal point with one, two, or three characters preceding it (that is, the part before the decimal point will range from 1 through 999). This may require the addition of either one or two trailing zeros.
If after the adjustment the decimal point would not be followed by a digit then it is not added. If the final exponent is zero then no indicator letter and exponent is suffixed.
This proprietary IBM specification actually admits to not applying the engineering notation for numbers with an infinite decimal representation, for which ordinary scientific notation is used instead! This is obviously incorrect behaviour for which a Python bug report was opened.
Solution
from math import floor, log10
def powerise10(x):
""" Returns x as a*10**b with 0 <= a < 10
"""
if x == 0: return 0,0
Neg = x < 0
if Neg: x = -x
a = 1.0 * x / 10**(floor(log10(x)))
b = int(floor(log10(x)))
if Neg: a = -a
return a,b
def eng(x):
"""Return a string representing x in an engineer friendly notation"""
a,b = powerise10(x)
if -3 < b < 3: return "%.4g" % x
a = a * 10**(b % 3)
b = b - b % 3
return "%.4gE%s" % (a,b)
Source: https://code.activestate.com/recipes/578238-engineering-notation/
Test result
>>> eng(0.0001)
100E-6

Like the answers above, but a bit more compact:
from math import log10, floor
def eng_format(x,precision=3):
"""Returns string in engineering format, i.e. 100.1e-3"""
x = float(x) # inplace copy
if x == 0:
a,b = 0,0
else:
sgn = 1.0 if x > 0 else -1.0
x = abs(x)
a = sgn * x / 10**(floor(log10(x)))
b = int(floor(log10(x)))
if -3 < b < 3:
return ("%." + str(precision) + "g") % x
else:
a = a * 10**(b % 3)
b = b - b % 3
return ("%." + str(precision) + "gE%s") % (a,b)
Trial:
In [10]: eng_format(-1.2345e-4,precision=5)
Out[10]: '-123.45E-6'