Quadraatic Formula Program Problem

Okay, I'm developing a program that will solve quadratic equations for users. I have them plug in values for a, b, and c in the following formula: ax^2 + bx +c. This formula probably looks familiar to you guys from highschool. Anyways, for some reason my code outputs completely inaccurate results. Here is my code:

#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <cstdio>
#include <cstdlib>
using namespace std;

int main()
{
//variable declarations

int aval;
int bval;
int cval;
int root;
int preroot;
double sol1;
double sol2;

//a user inputs an integer for each of the specified values

cout<< "a = ";
cin >> aval;
cout<<"b = ";
cin>>bval;
cout<<"c = ";
cin>>cval;

//number crunching


sol1 = (-bval + sqrt(bval*bval - 4*aval*cval))/(2*aval);
sol2 = (-bval - sqrt(bval*bval - 4*aval*cval))/(2*aval);

//output

cout<<"Your solutions are: x = ";
cout<<sol1;
cout<<" or x = ";
cout<<sol2<< endl;
system("PAUSE");
return 0;
}

For example, the equation 4x^2 + 5x + 1 comes up with x = -4 and x = -16 when the answers are clearly -1 and -1/4. I'm probably making some really stupid mistake or maybe i messed up the formula but i can't seem to figure it out! Anyways, some help would be nice. And please be gentle i'm new to this. Thanks!

PS. I'm plugging the user input into the quadratic formula just in case you were confused. The quadratic formula can be found here: http://mste.illinois.edu/exner/ncsa/quad/

A possible problem is that ints don't divide very well. E.g. 1 divided by 2 will give you zero (0.5 with the .5 chopped off).

Try it with floats as the input and output.

Also a good principle when doing any maths in C++ is for the answer and every input to all be the same datatype, otherwise you will often get unexpected results.

As has been suggested the problem is integer division. Switch to doubles throughout.

And note that 2 is an integer whereas 2.0 is a double.

Another problem is that you must make sure that sqrt isn't called with a negative parameter. This happens when the quadratic formula has imaginary solutions.

Thank you very much. I changed everything to doubles including the non variable values as well and i got the correct answers. This should make math homework go by a lot faster ;) Thanks to both of you! Cheers!

-MiniatureBeast

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MiniatureBeast

This should make math homework go by a lot faster ;)

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Don't forget that some teachers will take off points if you don't write down every step.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lindley

Don't forget that some teachers will take off points if you don't write down every step.

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And, if you miss something in one step, but carry the issue forward, some teachers will give you partial credit (i.e. not penalize you full points because you wrote a '8' down instead of a '7').

Viggy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MiniatureBeast

the non variable values

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They're called literals.

Good luck.

Honestly I didn't read much of what people said, I just read part of your first post, BUT
there is something I'd like to say

since sqrt(bval*bval - 4*aval*cval))/(2*aval) is needed to find x AND y
you should do something like

d = sqrt(bval*bval - 4*aval*cval))/(2*aval)

x = -bval + d
y = -bval - d

just copy pasted parts of your code, didn't check them for syntax / semantical errors