The expression 6 // 4
yields 1
, where floor division produces the whole number after dividing a number.
But with a negative number, why does -6 // 4
return -2
?
The //
operator explicitly floors the result. Quoting the Binary arithmetic operations documentation:
the result is that of mathematical division with the ‘floor’ function applied to the result.
Flooring is not the same thing as rounding to 0; flooring always moves to the lower integer value. See the math.floor()
function:
Return the floor of x, the largest integer less than or equal to x.
For -6 // 4
, first the result of -6 / 4
is calculated, so -1.5
. Flooring then moves to the lower integer value, so -2
.
If you want to round towards zero instead, you'll have to do so explicitly; you could do this with the int()
function on true division:
>>> int(-6 / 4)
-1
int()
removes the decimal portion, so always rounds towards zero instead.