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Rounding Numbers

The way printf and sprintf (see Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing) perform rounding often depends upon the system's C sprintf subroutine. On many machines, sprintf rounding is "unbiased," which means it doesn't always round a trailing .5 up, contrary to naive expectations. In unbiased rounding, .5 rounds to even, rather than always up, so 1.5 rounds to 2 but 4.5 rounds to 4. This means that if you are using a format that does rounding (e.g., "%.0f"), you should check what your system does. The following function does traditional rounding; it might be useful if your awk's printf does unbiased rounding:

# round.awk --- do normal rounding
function round(x,   ival, aval, fraction)
{
   ival = int(x)    # integer part, int() truncates

   # see if fractional part
   if (ival == x)   # no fraction
      return x

   if (x < 0) {
      aval = -x     # absolute value
      ival = int(aval)
      fraction = aval - ival
      if (fraction >= .5)
         return int(x) - 1   # -2.5 --> -3
      else
         return int(x)       # -2.3 --> -2
   } else {
      fraction = x - ival
      if (fraction >= .5)
         return ival + 1
      else
         return ival
   }
}

# test harness
{ print $0, round($0) }