KITFORMA · EDITORIAL ANSWER
How should an exact BigDecimal division handle a repeating decimal?
KitForma editorial guide. An exact quotient may need infinitely many decimal places. That is different from a zero divisor or corrupted input.
Step-by-step answer
An exact quotient may need infinitely many decimal places. That is different from a zero divisor or corrupted input.
For a display-only ratio rounded to four decimal places, use
numerator.divide(denominator, 4, RoundingMode.HALF_UP) after rejecting a zero denominator. If significant digits rather than decimal places govern the calculation, supply an appropriate MathContext instead. Make this choice visible in the function contract; catching every ArithmeticException and returning zero conceals invalid calculations.
Verify a terminating quotient, one third, a negative quotient and zero division. Compare with the selected rounding rule rather than expecting an arbitrary string. A rounded intermediate result may accumulate error, so do not round every step unless the actual specification requires it.Sources and verification
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