:mod:`fractions` --- Rational numbers ===================================== .. module:: fractions :synopsis: Rational numbers. .. moduleauthor:: Jeffrey Yasskin .. sectionauthor:: Jeffrey Yasskin .. versionadded:: 2.6 The :mod:`fractions` module provides support for rational number arithmetic. A Fraction instance can be constructed from a pair of integers, from another rational number, or from a string. .. class:: Fraction(numerator=0, denominator=1) Fraction(other_fraction) Fraction(string) The first version requires that *numerator* and *denominator* are instances of :class:`numbers.Integral` and returns a new :class:`Fraction` instance with value ``numerator/denominator``. If *denominator* is :const:`0`, it raises a :exc:`ZeroDivisionError`. The second version requires that *other_fraction* is an instance of :class:`numbers.Rational` and returns an :class:`Fraction` instance with the same value. The last version of the constructor expects a string or unicode instance in one of two possible forms. The first form is:: [sign] numerator ['/' denominator] where the optional ``sign`` may be either '+' or '-' and ``numerator`` and ``denominator`` (if present) are strings of decimal digits. The second permitted form is that of a number containing a decimal point:: [sign] integer '.' [fraction] | [sign] '.' fraction where ``integer`` and ``fraction`` are strings of digits. In either form the input string may also have leading and/or trailing whitespace. Here are some examples:: >>> from fractions import Fraction >>> Fraction(16, -10) Fraction(-8, 5) >>> Fraction(123) Fraction(123, 1) >>> Fraction() Fraction(0, 1) >>> Fraction('3/7') Fraction(3, 7) [40794 refs] >>> Fraction(' -3/7 ') Fraction(-3, 7) >>> Fraction('1.414213 \t\n') Fraction(1414213, 1000000) >>> Fraction('-.125') Fraction(-1, 8) The :class:`Fraction` class inherits from the abstract base class :class:`numbers.Rational`, and implements all of the methods and operations from that class. :class:`Fraction` instances are hashable, and should be treated as immutable. In addition, :class:`Fraction` has the following methods: .. method:: from_float(flt) This class method constructs a :class:`Fraction` representing the exact value of *flt*, which must be a :class:`float`. Beware that ``Fraction.from_float(0.3)`` is not the same value as ``Fraction(3, 10)`` .. method:: from_decimal(dec) This class method constructs a :class:`Fraction` representing the exact value of *dec*, which must be a :class:`decimal.Decimal`. .. method:: limit_denominator(max_denominator=1000000) Finds and returns the closest :class:`Fraction` to ``self`` that has denominator at most max_denominator. This method is useful for finding rational approximations to a given floating-point number: >>> from fractions import Fraction >>> Fraction('3.1415926535897932').limit_denominator(1000) Fraction(355, 113) or for recovering a rational number that's represented as a float: >>> from math import pi, cos >>> Fraction.from_float(cos(pi/3)) Fraction(4503599627370497, 9007199254740992) >>> Fraction.from_float(cos(pi/3)).limit_denominator() Fraction(1, 2) .. function:: gcd(a, b) Return the greatest common divisor of the integers *a* and *b*. If either *a* or *b* is nonzero, then the absolute value of ``gcd(a, b)`` is the largest integer that divides both *a* and *b*. ``gcd(a,b)`` has the same sign as *b* if *b* is nonzero; otherwise it takes the sign of *a*. ``gcd(0, 0)`` returns ``0``. .. seealso:: Module :mod:`numbers` The abstract base classes making up the numeric tower.