I have a java math problem

When we calculate 4/6 on an ordinary calculator, the answer is 0.6666666666667 right? But when we ask java to calculate 4/6 (assuming that 4 and 6 are 'floats' as in real numbers), java would display an answer of 0.0, but we know that 0.0 does not equal to 4/6. So my question is how do we 'teach' java to tell it that 4/6 is 0.66666666667 not 0.0.

This is the section of my program that I am having problems

int gear1;
int gear2;
int gear3;

System.out.print("Please enter the number of sprokets of the gear 1...");
gear1 =
Integer.valueOf(inputStream.readLine().trim()).intValue();

System.out.print("Please enter the number of sprokets of the gear 2...");
gear2=
Integer.valueOf(inputStream.readLine().trim()).intValue();

System.out.print("Please enter the number of sprokets of the gear 3...");
gear3=
Integer.valueOf(inputStream.readLine().trim()).intValue();

System.out.println("The number of sprokets on gear 1 is " + gear1);
System.out.println("The number of sprokets on gear 2 is " + gear2);
System.out.println("The number of sprokets on gear 3 is " + gear3);

float Ratio1;
float Ratio2;

ratio1 = (gear1 / gear2);
ratio2 = (gear2 / gear3);

System.out.println("The gear ratio between gear 2 and gear 1 is " + ratio1);
System.out.println("The gear ratio between gear 3 and gear 2 is " + ratio2);

I think u r doing integer division that's why u r getting '0.0'

Try this...


ratio1 = ((float)gear1 / gear2);
ratio2 = ((float)gear2 / gear3);




in ur code, and it should give u proper result in fractions.

- UnicMan
http://members.tripod.com/unicman

Hello Beavis,

the problem is that gear1, gear2 and gear3 should be of type float or double, but in your example they are of type int, so java will perform an integer division and not a float/number division.

Giorgio