How can I turn a floating point number into the closest fraction represented by a byte numerator and denominator?

Question

How can I write an algorithm that given a floating point number, and attempts to represent is as accurately as possible using a numerator and a denominator, both restricted

Answer 1

Here's the code I used in the end (based on uckelman's code)

public static int[] GetFraction(double input)
{
    int p0 = 1;
    int q0 = 0;
    int p1 = (int) Math.floor(input);
    int q1 = 1;
    int p2;
    int q2;

    double r = input - p1;
    double next_cf;
    while(true)
    {
        r = 1.0 / r;
        next_cf = Math.floor(r);
        p2 = (int) (next_cf * p1 + p0);
        q2 = (int) (next_cf * q1 + q0);

        // Limit the numerator and denominator to be 256 or less
        if(p2 > 256 || q2 > 256)
            break;

        // remember the last two fractions
        p0 = p1;
        p1 = p2;
        q0 = q1;
        q1 = q2;

        r -= next_cf;
    }

    input = (double) p1 / q1;
    // hard upper and lower bounds for ratio
    if(input > 256.0)
    {
        p1 = 256;
        q1 = 1;
    }
    else if(input < 1.0 / 256.0)
    {
        p1 = 1;
        q1 = 256;
    }
    return new int[] {p1, q1};
}

Thanks for those who helped