Servoy Forum

Hi, I have (different) rounding problem

I have an invoice, with invoice lines.
one invoice line has:

quantity * (saleprice - discount %) = total
quantity = 12
saleprice = 8.95
discount = 10 (%)

to calculate the price minus discount the calculation is as follows:
var a = 8.95 - (8.95 * (0.01 * 10)) //==8.055
var b = Math.round(a * 100) / 100 //== 8.06

12 * 8.06 = 96.72

This is correct, and there is further no problem.
But sometimes we duplicate the invoice to create a Credit Invoice.
We duplicate than the invoice-line and set the 8.95 to -8.95

but now the rounding goes wrong (in our case)
var a = -8,95 - (-8.95 * (0.01 * 10)) //== -8.055
var b = Math.round(a * 100) / 100 //== -08.05

12 * -8.05 = -96.60

As you can see in this example, the difference is 0.12.
I was wondering if someone came across this problem, and how to solve this.

I have some ideas, like: setting the quantity to -12, instead of the price.
Than the calculation goes oke, but I can't prevent users, by setting manually the price to a negative number..

Hi Harjo,

What happens if you do the rounding on a positive number and apply the negate after the rounding ?

var a = 8,95 - (8.95 * (0.01 * 10)) //== 8.055
var b = Math.round(a * 100) / 100 //== 08.06
var c = - b // == -08.06 ?

Regards,

not sure if it is a useful suggestion but you could always check if the value is negative and than use Math.abs(x) to convert it to a positive value. At the end you only have to convert the result back to a negative value.

I came across, when using a negative number you can use: Math.floor.

So I corrected it, by doing this:

Code: Select all

var vValue = 8.95 //or -8.95
var a = vValue - (vValue * (0.01 * 10))
var b = 0
if(vValue >= 0) {
   b = Math.round(a * 100) / 100
} else {
   b = Math.floor(a * 100) / 100
}

if vValue is positive or negative, the rounding is now always correct.

Personally I would lookup the value of the original invoice and negate it. If the price of the item changes between invoicing and crediting you may wind up giving back more money than was paid regardless of how you round...

omar wrote:Personally I would lookup the value of the original invoice and negate it.

That is exactly what I did and do Omar.

I duplicate the invoice-line and negate, the piece price...
but if you calculate further (with quantity and maybe discount you gave) with negative numbers, the rounding goes wrong..

Hi Harjo,

Math.floor(-8.3) = -9
Math.round(8.3) = 8

I don't think that's what you want...

Math.round(8.5) = 9
- Math.round(8.5) = -9

Math.round(8.3) = 8
- Math.round(8.3) = -8

My advice : take my advice...

From my Foxpro legacy :

Foxpro round(1.5, 0) = 2 (round 1.5 to 0 decimals)
Foxpro round(-1.5, 0) = -2

Regards,

Hi Lambert, I like this discussion!
I see your point when you don't multiply by 100 and than do / by 100

Than, what would you advice to change this method as shown under, to detect if it's negative number, transform it to a positive number, do the rounding, and put it back to a negative number

Code: Select all

var vValue = 8.95 //or -8.95
var a = vValue - (vValue * (0.01 * 10))
var b = 0
if(vValue >= 0) {
   b = Math.round(a * 100) / 100
} else {
   b = Math.floor(a * 100) / 100
}

I have no knowledge of FoxPro, but do you mean, that rounding in FoxPro, is ok?, despite if you using positive or negative numbers?

Hi Harjo,

I like this discussion also, I have a weak spot for numerical computations and numerical precision...

Foxpro does the rounding (of negative numbers) in a fashion you asked for .

You can achieve the same fashion in Java(script) by always do the rounding on a positive number and negate
the result if the original value before rounding was negative.

I put that code today in our own global Servoy round() method after reading your question.

There is no mathematical law that says what round(-1.5) must return (-1 or -2) so what is
wrong or what is right is arbitrary. I like round(-1.5) to return -2 because round(1.5) returns 2.

Anyway, thanks for stirring this up...

Bit kludgy but it works and it supports any number of decimals:

Code: Select all

function round(nExpression, nDecimals) {
   var result = Math.round(Math.abs(nExpression) * Math.pow(10, nDecimals)) / Math.pow(10,nDecimals)
   if (nExpression<0) {return result*-1} else {return result}
}

round(-8.055, 2)  // -8.06

round(8.055, 2)  // 8.06


Hi Omar,

Yep ! That's my function

Regards,

Interesting discussion
Here is a slightly cleaner version of that function:

Code: Select all

function round(_nValue, _nPrecision) {
    var _nAbsValue = Math.abs(_nValue),
        _nDivision = Math.pow(10, _nPrecision);
    return (Math.round(_nAbsValue * _nDivision) / _nDivision) * (_nValue / _nAbsValue);
}

Or if you really wanted to as the (in)famous Oneliner :

Code: Select all

function round(_nValue, _nPrecision) {
    return (Math.round(Math.abs(_nValue) * Math.pow(10, _nPrecision)) / Math.pow(10, _nPrecision)) * (_nValue / Math.abs(_nValue));
}

Hi Robert,

Already recovered from the fosdem ?

About the (_nValue / _nAbsValue) :

In Foxpro we had the handy numerical function sign(x) with three possible return values.
x<0 : -1, x==0 : 0, x>0 : 1

We often did a check like sign(a)<>sign(b) in our code.

Regards,

Nice Robert! Now maybe a bugfix/feature request for the round function in Servoy to work like that?

Hi Lambert, VFP had a rich language but has also had it's quirks and flaws. And we have to move on so pretty soon I will be taking down www.visualfoxpro.com. If people haven't left VFP yet they probably never will

lwjwillemsen wrote:Already recovered from the fosdem ?

Oh yes, we had fun. Friday we (PgEurope) organized for the third time a PgDay in front of FOSDEM. Which is a full day of talks about PostgreSQL. It was fun.
And the first day of FOSDEM (Saturday) we had a devroom so another full day of talks. The Sunday we had Slonik (the Pg mascotte) walking around.
We even said hi to the MySQL booth . Too bad they couldn't be bothered to actually man their booth because they had a devroom to run....(tsk tsk... )

lwjwillemsen wrote:About the (_nValue / _nAbsValue) :

In Foxpro we had the handy numerical function sign(x) with three possible return values.
x<0 : -1, x==0 : 0, x>0 : 1

We often did a check like sign(a)<>sign(b) in our code.

Essentially all these functions that Servoy uses are Javascript functions, not persé Servoy functions.
And I see that the Math.sign() function is proposed in the ECMAScript 6 specification, still experimental at this stage.