Rounddown Calculation issue or confusion?

blewispunk

New Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2003
Messages
12
Hello,

I'm trying to use the rounddown function and getting some odd results that seem like a bug but maybe I'm confused by the function.

I have
A1 = 0.110
A2 = 0.101

My function is =ROUNDDOWN(A1-A2,3)

I keep getting a result of 0.008 even though simple math should result in 0.009. I would think this would be due to extra digits being in cell A1 or A2 but the values entered are exactly as shown here. If I try different values it seems to be working correctly with other combinations I've tried but this one is goofy. When I change the calculation to =ROUNDDOWN(A1-A2,4) I get a result of 0.0089, so it is doing some incorrect math.

Any thoughts on this? I'm using Excel 2007.
 

Excel Facts

How to total the visible cells?
From the first blank cell below a filtered data set, press Alt+=. Instead of SUM, you will get SUBTOTAL(9,)
Due to the way Excel calculates you sometimes get "rounding errors" so in this case instead of 0.009 the result of A1-A2 is actually 0.00899999999999999 [according to Excel] hence the result of 0.008 when rounded down. You can get round that by rounding within the rounddown, i.e.

=ROUNDDOWN(ROUND(A1-A2,5),3)

See here for more details
 
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