Python 3.x rounding behavior

Python 3's way (called "round half to even" or "banker's rounding") is considered the standard rounding method these days, though some language implementations aren't on the bus yet.

The simple "always round 0.5 up" technique results in a slight bias toward the higher number. With large numbers of calculations, this can be significant. The Python 3.0 approach eliminates this issue.

There is more than one method of rounding in common use. IEEE 754, the international standard for floating-point math, defines five different rounding methods (the one used by Python 3.0 is the default). And there are others.

This behavior is not as widely known as it ought to be. AppleScript was, if I remember correctly, an early adopter of this rounding method. The round command in AppleScript offers several options, but round-toward-even is the default as it is in IEEE 754. Apparently the engineer who implemented the round command got so fed up with all the requests to "make it work like I learned in school" that he implemented just that: round 2.5 rounding as taught in school is a valid AppleScript command. :-)

You can control the rounding you get in Py3000 using the Decimal module:

>>> decimal.Decimal('3.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'), 
    rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_UP)
>>> Decimal('4')

>>> decimal.Decimal('2.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'),    
    rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_EVEN)
>>> Decimal('2')

>>> decimal.Decimal('3.5').quantize(decimal.Decimal('1'), 
    rounding=decimal.ROUND_HALF_DOWN)
>>> Decimal('3')

Just to add here an important note from documentation:

https://docs.python.org/dev/library/functions.html#round

Note

The behavior of round() for floats can be surprising: for example, round(2.675, 2) gives 2.67 instead of the expected 2.68. This is not a bug: it’s a result of the fact that most decimal fractions can’t be represented exactly as a float. See Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations for more information.

So don't be surprised to get following results in Python 3.2:

>>> round(0.25,1), round(0.35,1), round(0.45,1), round(0.55,1)
(0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.6)

>>> round(0.025,2), round(0.035,2), round(0.045,2), round(0.055,2)
(0.03, 0.04, 0.04, 0.06)

I recently had problems with this, too. Hence, I have developed a python 3 module that has 2 functions trueround() and trueround_precision() that address this and give the same rounding behaviour were are used to from primary school (not banker's rounding). Here is the module. Just save the code and copy it in or import it. Note: the trueround_precision module can change the rounding behaviour depending on needs according to the ROUND_CEILING, ROUND_DOWN, ROUND_FLOOR, ROUND_HALF_DOWN, ROUND_HALF_EVEN, ROUND_HALF_UP, ROUND_UP, and ROUND_05UP flags in the decimal module (see that modules documentation for more info). For the functions below, see the docstrings or use help(trueround) and help(trueround_precision) if copied into an interpreter for further documentation.

#! /usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

def trueround(number, places=0):
    '''
    trueround(number, places)
    
    example:
        
        >>> trueround(2.55, 1) == 2.6
        True

    uses standard functions with no import to give "normal" behavior to 
    rounding so that trueround(2.5) == 3, trueround(3.5) == 4, 
    trueround(4.5) == 5, etc. Use with caution, however. This still has 
    the same problem with floating point math. The return object will 
    be type int if places=0 or a float if places=>1.
    
    number is the floating point number needed rounding
    
    places is the number of decimal places to round to with '0' as the
        default which will actually return our interger. Otherwise, a
        floating point will be returned to the given decimal place.
    
    Note:   Use trueround_precision() if true precision with
            floats is needed

    GPL 2.0
    copywrite by Narnie Harshoe <signupnarnie@gmail.com>
    '''
    place = 10**(places)
    rounded = (int(number*place + 0.5if number>=0 else -0.5))/place
    if rounded == int(rounded):
        rounded = int(rounded)
    return rounded

def trueround_precision(number, places=0, rounding=None):
    '''
    trueround_precision(number, places, rounding=ROUND_HALF_UP)
    
    Uses true precision for floating numbers using the 'decimal' module in
    python and assumes the module has already been imported before calling
    this function. The return object is of type Decimal.

    All rounding options are available from the decimal module including 
    ROUND_CEILING, ROUND_DOWN, ROUND_FLOOR, ROUND_HALF_DOWN, ROUND_HALF_EVEN, 
    ROUND_HALF_UP, ROUND_UP, and ROUND_05UP.

    examples:
        
        >>> trueround(2.5, 0) == Decimal('3')
        True
        >>> trueround(2.5, 0, ROUND_DOWN) == Decimal('2')
        True

    number is a floating point number or a string type containing a number on 
        on which to be acted.

    places is the number of decimal places to round to with '0' as the default.

    Note:   if type float is passed as the first argument to the function, it
            will first be converted to a str type for correct rounding.

    GPL 2.0
    copywrite by Narnie Harshoe <signupnarnie@gmail.com>
    '''
    from decimal import Decimal as dec
    from decimal import ROUND_HALF_UP
    from decimal import ROUND_CEILING
    from decimal import ROUND_DOWN
    from decimal import ROUND_FLOOR
    from decimal import ROUND_HALF_DOWN
    from decimal import ROUND_HALF_EVEN
    from decimal import ROUND_UP
    from decimal import ROUND_05UP

    if type(number) == type(float()):
        number = str(number)
    if rounding == None:
        rounding = ROUND_HALF_UP
    place = '1.'
    for i in range(places):
        place = ''.join([place, '0'])
    return dec(number).quantize(dec(place), rounding=rounding)