CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonfloating-pointdecimalpython-2.xapproximation
Ivan Kelber
Ivan Kelber

Reputation: 336

Having trouble outputting decimal approximations; Python 2 rounds division to 0 or 1

So I've decided to make a hypergeometric distribution calculator (probability and statistics stuff). The problem is that the output will always be between 0 and 1. So Python rounds down to 0 or up to 1 depending on the output value.

Here's my code

from combinatorics import combination
from combinatorics import permutation
from factorial import factorial
from decimal import Decimal

#Hypergeometric and Binomial Distributions!



def hypergeometric(N, n, r, k):
    hyper = (combination(r, k) * combination(N - r, n - k))/(combination(N, n))
    return hyper

pop = int(raw_input("What is the size of the population? "))
draws = int(raw_input("How many draws were there? "))
spop = int(raw_input("What is the smaller population? "))
success = int(raw_input("How many successes were there? "))

print Decimal(hypergeometric(pop, draws, spop, success))

I've tried importing the decimal module, but I'm not really sure if I'm using it correctly or if that's even what it's there for. Any help would be awesome!

Edit: As an example, when I set N = 15, n = 6, r = 5, and k = 3, it rounds the answer to 0. I would like it instead to print the proper answer: .2397802398. Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 144

Answers (1)

Jan Pöschko
Jan Pöschko

Reputation: 5570

Make sure the division returns a float instead of an integer (as all input variables are integers):

def hypergeometric(N, n, r, k):
    return 1.0 * combination(r, k) * combination(N - r, n - k) / combination(N, n)

Alternative: I assume you're using Python < 3 (otherwise this issue wouldn't have come up in the first place). Then you could do

from __future__ import division

which will make / the floating division, whereas // returns integers if given integers. Just put this import at the top of your source file, and you won't have to change your other code.

Upvotes: 3

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