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Division of two integers normally yields a floating-point number if the
result cannot be expressed as an integer. In some cases you would
rather get an exact fractional answer. One way to accomplish this is
to use the : (calc-fdiv
) [fdiv
] command, which
divides the two integers on the top of the stack to produce a fraction:
6 RET 4 : produces ‘3:2’ even though
6 RET 4 / produces ‘1.5’.
To set the Calculator to produce fractional results for normal integer
divisions, use the m f (calc-frac-mode
) command.
For example, ‘8/4’ produces ‘2’ in either mode,
but ‘6/4’ produces ‘3:2’ in Fraction mode, ‘1.5’ in
Float mode.
At any time you can use c f (calc-float
) to convert a
fraction to a float, or c F (calc-fraction
) to convert a
float to a fraction. See Conversions.