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.