Retain precision with double in Java

Question

public class doublePrecision {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        double total = 0;
        total += 5.6;
        total += 5.8;
        System.out         


        

Answer 1

Use java.math.BigDecimal

Doubles are binary fractions internally, so they sometimes cannot represent decimal fractions to the exact decimal.

Answer 2

Why not use the round() method from Math class?

// The number of 0s determines how many digits you want after the floating point
// (here one digit)
total = (double)Math.round(total * 10) / 10;
System.out.println(total); // prints 11.4

Answer 3

private void getRound() {
    // this is very simple and interesting 
    double a = 5, b = 3, c;
    c = a / b;
    System.out.println(" round  val is " + c);

    //  round  val is  :  1.6666666666666667
    // if you want to only two precision point with double we 
            //  can use formate option in String 
           // which takes 2 parameters one is formte specifier which 
           // shows dicimal places another double value 
    String s = String.format("%.2f", c);
    double val = Double.parseDouble(s);
    System.out.println(" val is :" + val);
    // now out put will be : val is :1.67
}

Answer 4

Use a BigDecimal. It even lets you specify rounding rules (like ROUND_HALF_EVEN, which will minimize statistical error by rounding to the even neighbor if both are the same distance; i.e. both 1.5 and 2.5 round to 2).

Answer 5

You may want to look into using java's java.math.BigDecimal class if you really need precision math. Here is a good article from Oracle/Sun on the case for BigDecimal. While you can never represent 1/3 as someone mentioned, you can have the power to decide exactly how precise you want the result to be. setScale() is your friend.. :)

Ok, because I have way too much time on my hands at the moment here is a code example that relates to your question:

import java.math.BigDecimal;
/**
 * Created by a wonderful programmer known as:
 * Vincent Stoessel
 * xaymaca@gmail.com
 * on Mar 17, 2010 at  11:05:16 PM
 */
public class BigUp {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        BigDecimal first, second, result ;
        first = new BigDecimal("33.33333333333333")  ;
        second = new BigDecimal("100") ;
        result = first.divide(second);
        System.out.println("result is " + result);
       //will print : result is 0.3333333333333333


    }
}

and to plug my new favorite language, Groovy, here is a neater example of the same thing:

import java.math.BigDecimal

def  first =   new BigDecimal("33.33333333333333")
def second = new BigDecimal("100")


println "result is " + first/second   // will print: result is 0.33333333333333

Answer 6

Pretty sure you could've made that into a three line example. :)

If you want exact precision, use BigDecimal. Otherwise, you can use ints multiplied by 10 ^ whatever precision you want.