How do I get a decimal value when using the division operator in Python?

Question

For example, the standard division symbol '/' rounds to zero:

>>> 4 / 100 0 

However, I want it to return 0.04. What do I use?

Answer 1

There are three options:

>>> 4 / float(100) 0.04 >>> 4 / 100.0 0.04 

which is the same behavior as the C, C++, Java etc, or

>>> from __future__ import division >>> 4 / 100 0.04 

You can also activate this behavior by passing the argument -Qnew to the Python interpreter:

$ python -Qnew >>> 4 / 100 0.04 

The second option will be the default in Python 3.0. If you want to have the old integer division, you have to use the // operator.

Edit: added section about -Qnew, thanks to ΤΖΩΤΖΙΟΥ!