Removing digits after decimal point

[Jean Jacques]

Hi guys,

I have var1 where values can be 10 or 9 but also 9.3333. If that's the case I want to have 9.3. How can I do that? If I'm not mistaken "format var1 %4.1f" doesn't change the variable, just how it is displayed.

Cheers!

[Nick Cox]

search precision

reveals resources -- especially the blog posts by WIlliam Gould -- that explain that trying to hold numbers with decimal parts exactly is doomed to failure unless we are considering numbers that can be held exactly in binary. Thus

9.5
9.25
9.75
9.125
9.375
9.625
9.875

(and so on) qualify but not other instances of

9 + 0.1 k
9 + 0.01 k
9 + 0.001 k

(and so on) within (9, 10),

In a nutshell, consider an example like

. di %23.18f 9.3
   9.300000000000000711

gen double Grail = round(var1, 0.1)

is the closest you can get to your Grail (goal).

[Jean Jacques]

Thanks Nick, the Grail was reached!