From: Dan Nachbar <dan@...>
Date: 2011-09-11T19:08:06+09:00
Subject: Re: How do I make output generate a float without an excess numbers of decimal places?

On Sep 11, 2011, at 5:47 AM, Kane Williams wrote:

> Dan Nachbar wrote in post #1021235:
>> You might try using the % instance method of String.
>> For example:
>> "%.2f" % (1.0/3)  => "0.33"
>> 
>> Dan Nachbar
> 
> Would you mind explaining the
>> "%.2f"
> part? What does the % do? And what does the f do? Thanks!

There are quite a few online resources that cover the details
much better than I can.  A quick google search turns
up several. For example, see

http://4loc.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/formatting-dates-and-floats-in-ruby/

The formats are the same as the ones used by sprintf and can
be found in the documentation for that method -
http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Kernel.html#M001432

Most books on ruby also cover this topic to some degree.

Dan Nachbar