Out of curiosity what are you doing that needs integer division? :)
For example in my window manager I have some rules to determine how
windows should be sized and positioned (tiling).
# how many windows with 484px width would fit in a given screen?
windows_count = screen.width / 484
# what height to use for multiple windows in a "column"?
window_height = column.height / column.windows.size
(this is not my actual code, I changed it slightly for clarity)
In another case, I wanted to overlay some CSV values from telemetry
data on videos. My values are within -1024..1024, and I want to
overlay a "bar chart" that is 720px high for example, so I had code
similar to this:
(telemetry_value + 1024) * 720 / 2048
Last example, I use ruby to generate "templates" for my keyboards
(to draw and cut holes for switches/keys). I was worried about Float
approximation (maybe wrongly), and preferred to calculate
everything with integers representing 1/10 millimeter (the most
precise measurement I work with is only 0.5 mm).
class Key < Struct.new :x, :y, :u, :direction
def urect
Rect.new(
x * U + CASE_PADDING[3],
y * U + CASE_PADDING[0],
U * (direction == :horizontal ? u : 1),
U * (direction == :vertical ? u : 1),
:blue
)
end
def switch
cx, cy = urect.center
Rect.new(
cx - SWITCH_SIZE / 2,
cy - SWITCH_SIZE / 2,
SWITCH_SIZE,
SWITCH_SIZE,
:red
)
end
end
class Rect < Struct.new :x, :y, :width, :height, :color
def center
[x + (width / 2), y + (height / 2)]
end
end
(https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tjouan/keyboards/master/lib/keyboards/layout.rb
for the rest of the code, sorry for ugliness and that github is the
only place I have it public for now)
So in most cases, it was about coordinates : I can't split a pixel
for example. But I also remember using integer division at work for
financial amounts, I cannot split a "cent" either and can't rely on
approximations in such case.
Still I think that 99% of people expect that when you divide 3 / 2 you get 1.5 (it's like that in every calculators in the world).
3 / 2 == 1 is against the principle of least surprise, but hey I understand that we can't change that anymore in Ruby. :)
Yes I have exaggerated in saying the opposite, sorry :-) I
understand that for math and scientific usage it's very different. My
background is mostly C and Ruby, and my "calculator" is almost always
`bc' program so I might be biased here.
--
Thibault Jouan
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