Question

I have to do a calculation with 1/50000. When I do

float(1/50000)

in python it only returns me 0.0. How can I get the actual value in the powers in python? I would like to get 2.5*10^(-5).

Answer 1

In [2]: 1.0/50000
Out[2]: 2e-05

Note the .0. It makes sure 1.0 is a floating-point literal and not an integer one.

A different way to write this is as follows:

In [3]: float(1)/50000
Out[3]: 2e-05

What you have right now first uses integer division to compute 1/50000. The result of this division is the integer 0, which is then converted to a floating-point value (0.0).

Finally, note that your current code will behave correctly in Python 3 (and the float() is superfluous). This is due to PEP 238.