Thread: Floating Point Modulus

  1. #1
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    Oct 2011
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    Floating Point Modulus

    Hi,
    I'm trying to find the modulus of two floating point numbers. I should be able to use fmodf, but I'm getting seemingly random values when I pass it the numerator as a variable.

    For example,
    Code:
    alpha = fmodf(31, 7);
    returns 3.000000, which is correct, but
    Code:
    float theta_demand = 31;
    alpha = fmodf(theta_demand, 7);
    returns 6.000000, which makes no sense.

    Anyone had this problem before?

    Thanks,
    Dave

  2. #2
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    Long Beach, CA
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    5,909
    Nope. Here's my test program and output:
    Code:
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <math.h>
    
    int main(void)
    {
        float theta = 31;
        float alpha;
    
        alpha = fmodf(31, 7);
        printf("Using just literals, alpha = %f\n", alpha);
        fmodf(theta, 7);
        printf("Using a variable in the numerator, alpha = %f\n", alpha);
    
        return 0;
    }
    Code:
    $ gcc -Wall -o fmod fmod.c -lm
    $ ./fmod
    Using just literals, alpha = 3.000000
    Using a variable in the numerator, alpha = 3.000000
    Can you give us the smallest possible complete program that shows the differing behavior? Also, what OS, compiler, IDE, etc are you using (names and versions)?
    Last edited by anduril462; 10-17-2011 at 10:00 AM.

  3. #3
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    Oct 2011
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    2
    I tried your code and got the same results as you. I then realised that I'd used theta_demand (the variable name I was passing to fmodf) as a parameter in the function I was writing, and I was initialising it with the value (31) outside it. Stupid mistake really, but thanks for helping me find it.

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