CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonconverters
UchiaSky
UchiaSky

Reputation: 41

Convert cents to quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies using Python

I'm using Python, and I am trying to convert a certain amount of money in cents to its equivalent in quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies.

This is what I have so far, but I see the problem is that I don't know how to take the remainder from the quarters and break it down into dimes, nickels and pennies. I'm new to this and just having a hard time. I'm not asking for someone to solve the problem, just point out what I did wrong (and maybe what I need to do to fix it).

# Convert some money to an appropriate collection of cents
penny = 1
nickel = 5
dime = 10
quarter = 25

quarters = 0
dimes = 0
nickels = 0
pennys = 0

cents = int(input("Please enter an amount of money you have in cents: "))

if cents >= 25:
    quarters = cents / quarter
    cents % quarter
if cents >= 10:
    dimes = cents/dime
    cents % dime
if cents >= 5:
    nickels = cents /nickel
    cents % nickel
if cents > 0:
    pennys = cents / penny
    cents = 0

print ("The coins are: quarters", quarters,\
",dimes", dimes, ",nickels", nickels, ", and pennys.", pennys)

Upvotes: 2

Views: 13340

Answers (3)

karuoro
karuoro

Reputation: 571

Was struggling with this yesterday evening. True, you need division and modulo. Not the most Pythonic way, but it works for any amount, when you restrict the amount of dollars you can input into the vending machine to $5.00. This question has been asked around and has been continually ignored. Maybe because it is homeworksque... Anyway....


def vending_machine_change():
    cost = float(input("Enter cost of item: "))
    change= 5.00-cost
    dollars = int(change)
    quarters_change= float("%.2f" % ((change-dollars)))
    quarters =int(quarters_change/0.25)
    dime_change= float("%.2f" % (quarters_change%0.25))
    dimes=int(dime_change/0.10)
    nickel_change = float("%.2f" % (dime_change%0.10))
    nickels= int(nickel_change/0.05)
    pennys = int(nickel_change*100)
    print("Change amount: " + str((dollars)) + ' Dollars, ' + str((quarters)) + ' Quarters, '+ str((dimes)) + ' Dimes, '+ str((nickels)) + ' Nickels, '+ str((pennys)) + ' Pennies' )
    pass

Upvotes: 0

dogwynn
dogwynn

Reputation: 408

There are two operations that you need here: integer division and modulo.

Integer division A / B asks a simple question: How many times will B fit into A cleanly (without having to break B into decimal pieces)? 2 fits into 8 cleanly 4 times. 2 fits into 9 cleanly 4 times as well.

Modulo A % B asks the same question but gives the flip-side of the answer: Given that A goes into B cleanly some number of times, what's left over? 2 goes into 8 cleanly 4 times with nothing left over, so 2 % 8 is 0. 2 goes into 9 cleanly 4 times but 1 is left over, so 2 % 9 is 1.

I'll give you another example, and let you make the transition from that to your problem. Let's say I'm given a number of seconds, and I need to convert it to days, hours, minutes and seconds.

total_seconds = 345169

# Specify conversion between seconds and minutes, hours and days
seconds_per_minute = 60
seconds_per_hour = 3600 # (60 * 60)
seconds_per_day = 86400 # (3600 * 24)

# First, we pull out the day-sized chunks of seconds from the total
# number of seconds
days = total_seconds / seconds_per_day
# days = total_seconds // seconds_per_day # Python3

# Then we use the modulo (or remainder) operation to get the number of
# seconds left over after removing the day-sized chunks
seconds_left_over = total_seconds % seconds_per_day

# Next we pull out the hour-sized chunks of seconds from the number of
# seconds left over from removing the day-sized chunks
hours = seconds_left_over / seconds_per_hour
# hours = seconds // seconds_per_hour # Python3

# Use modulo to find out how many seconds are left after pulling out
# hours
seconds_left_over = seconds_left_over % seconds_per_hour

# Pull out the minute-sized chunks
minutes = seconds_left_over / seconds_per_minute
# minutes = seconds_left_over // seconds_per_minute # Python3

# Find out how many seconds are left
seconds_left_over = seconds_left_over % seconds_per_minute

# Because we've removed all the days, hours and minutes, all we have
# left over are seconds
seconds = seconds_left_over

Upvotes: 0

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 531295

Using divmod, it's just three lines:

quarters, cents = divmod(cents, 25)
dimes, cents = divmod(cents, 10)
nickels, pennies = divmod(cents, 5)

Upvotes: 3

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