Ruby print out a float with optional digits

Question

Hi all,

I'm trying to print out a float number, that has the value 5

What I get when it print it out is 5.0, so my question is:

How to i make it so, that if the value is just 5, it will just print 5 without the .0 after it, and if it is 5.2 or so, it will print out that?

I've looked around, but all I found was to either force it one way or another.

Can someone help me in the right direction? Thanks :)

Answer 1

A couple of dirty solutions.

1.

a = 5.0
puts a.ceil == a ? a.ceil : a

2.

5.1.to_s.chomp ".0" #=> 5.1
5.0.to_s.chomp ".0" #=> 5

Answer 2

Try this:

number.to_s.gsub(/\.?0*$/, '')

This will even work for number = "5.30" # => '5.3'.

Answer 3

Why do you want to do this? 5 and 5.000 conveys different messages, because they have different numbers of significant figures. The first indicates "five give or minus a half" whereas the latter indicates "five to the nearest thousandth".