Calculation displays scientific format instead of a whole number

[Joe Laviguer]

I'm playing with a java program to calculate how many minutes or seconds are in x number of years i.e. a person's age.

I use Double dAge for the input, then when I tell it to multiply whatever the input is times the number of minutes in a year (535600), or seconds (31536000) I get a display result of 1.yada-yada-yada instead of the actual result in a whole number.

So how can I tell it to display the result as a whole number instead of in scientific notation? When I display number of days, months, hours, the display result is in whole numbers as I would expect it to.

I also tried using input variables for the minutes and seconds as Long lminutes = 535600L and the same for seconds, but the display again shows in scientific notation.

Thanks!

[W. Joe Smith]

Are you using an IDE or command line?

Can you post your code so we can see if it could be something in there?

[Joe Laviguer]

I'm using netbeans IDE, and unfortunately my code is at home (ssssshhhhhhh don't tell anyone I'm reading message boards at work). Just for clarification, the calculations come out fine, its the display I'm playing with. Thanks.

let's see if I can remember some of the code I wrote, limited:

Double dAge = 0.0; //input for age, in years

keyboard.readLine();

Double.parseDouble something something

System.out.println(dAge * 525600 + " minutes old.");

[Janeice DelVecchio]

Did you look at the number formatting tutorial?

[Joe Laviguer]

I wish I had some way to test this at work, but if I change this:

System.out.println(dAge * 525600 + " minutes old.");

TO

System.out.format("%d%n minutes old." (dAge * 525600));

will that give me what I'm looking for?

Thanks for the help.

[Janeice DelVecchio]

It might!

By the way, welcome to JavaRanch

[Joe Laviguer]

Janeice DelVecchio wrote:

By the way, welcome to JavaRanch

Thank you!

[Joe Laviguer]

Okay pulled some sample code from my class and edited it ( again, I'm using NetBeans IDE):

    import java.io.*;

public class Example {

	public static void main (String[] args) {

		InputStreamReader charReader = new
		InputStreamReader(System.in);
		BufferedReader keyboard = new
		BufferedReader (charReader);

		String sInput = "";
		String sFirstName = "";
		String sLastName = "";
		double dAge = 0.0;
		
		try

		 {

			do {

				//Ask the user for input
				System.out.println("Please enter the applicant's first name:");
				sFirstName = keyboard.readLine();
				
				System.out.println("Please enter the applicant's last name:");
				sLastName = keyboard.readLine();

				System.out.println("Please enter the age, in years");
				sInput = keyboard.readLine();			
				dAge = Double.parseDouble(sInput);

					
				}
				
				//Print results
				System.out.println(sLastName + ", " + sFirstName);
                                                                System.out.println(dAge + " years old.");
				System.out.println(dAge * 12 + " months old.");
				System.out.println(dAge * 365 + " days old.");
				System.out.println(dAge * 8760 + " hours old.");
				System.out.println(dAge * 525600 + " minutes old.");
				System.out.println(dAge * 31536000 + " seconds old.");
				
				
				//Ask the user if they want to quit or enter another candidate
				System.out.println("Press Q to quit or any other key to continue");
				sInput = keyboard.readLine();			

			} while (!(sInput.equals("Q") || sInput.equals("q")));

		}
		catch (IOException e) {
			System.out.println("Error " + e.getMessage());
		}
	}

}

Sample resulting output:
LastName, FirstName
n years old. (displays properly)
n months old. (displays properly)
n days old. (displays properly)
n hours old. (displays properly)
n minutes old. (displays in scientific notation)
n seconds old. (displays in scientific notation)

[Rob Spoor]

Please Use Code Tags.

[Joe Laviguer]

Thanks Rob; I edited my post.

[W. Joe Smith]

Joe Laviguer wrote:Thanks Rob; I edited my post.

Check your {} matching sets. I think you have an extra } in there. Not exactly the problem you were asking about, but an issue nonetheless.

[Joe Laviguer]

Still not having any luck displaying the larger numbers as anything but scientific notation:

results are:

2.41776E7 minutes old.
1.450656E9 seconds old.

[Henry Wong]

Joe Laviguer wrote:Still not having any luck displaying the larger numbers as anything but scientific notation:

results are:

2.41776E7 minutes old.
1.450656E9 seconds old.

Did you try any of the formatting stuff, that you were given a reference to?

Henry

[Joe Laviguer]

I did, but I guess I'm not understanding it well enough (I'm just starting out in this programming stuff) to make it work.

[Janeice DelVecchio]

Joe Laviguer wrote:I did, but I guess I'm not understanding it well enough (I'm just starting out in this programming stuff) to make it work.

You should find a way to format it to stop at the the tenths place....

I only say this because I think it will work and know it can be done.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Why did you say "hex"? That isn't hex, that's decimal in scientific notation.

Helpful Java™ Tutorials link.

[Joe Laviguer]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Why did you say "hex"? That isn't hex, that's decimal in scientific notation.

Helpful Java™ Tutorials link.

You are correct...I forgot to edit that part of my post

[Joe Laviguer]

Okay I got it working now. I brought in my netbook and typed in the code manually line by line. I could have sworn I tried this on my home PC so I'll have to go look at my code at home to see what's wrong with it.

I changed:

    
System.out.println(dMinutes + " minutes old.");
//where dMinutes = age in years multiplied times the number of minutes in a year (did the same for seconds).

I changed that to:

System.out.printf("%f minutes old.", dMinutes);

Thanks to everyone for their help!

[Campbell Ritchie]

No problem; I can change the title for you.

Did you find my link any use?

[Campbell Ritchie]

You might do well to consider using numbers with the %f tag. Try %.0f. Look through the Formatter class and see how %f compares with %e and %g. You can also see what %6.2f %6.0f and %.2f mean, but you will have to read carefully; it's not easy to understand.

[Joe Laviguer]

Okay I plugged in %.0f and that eliminated the 6 trailing zeros, but now when I'm using printf instead of println, there's no break at the end of the individual lines, it all runs on in one line i.e.

Lname, FName
xx years old.xx months old.xx days old. etc.

do I need a "break;" or something in there?

[Janeice DelVecchio]

Golly, I need a break -- coffee, thank you.

What you can do is put a System.out.println() with no parameters and skip a line, or (my preferencem but I don't know how it will work with printf) use a newline \n to create a new line inside your printf.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Quicker to use the %n tag after printf.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Better to use %n than \n (as it says in the JavaTutorials link I quoted earlier) because the result of %n is corrected for the operating system. You won't notice any difference for 99% of the time . . .

[Joe Laviguer]

Okay I think we're good now lol

System.out.printf("%n%.0f months old.", dMonths);

Thank you! I really hope I'm learning something lol