Rounding negative numbers
FLOOR()
and CEILING()
will round negative numbers towards or away from negative infinity. That is, FLOOR(-1.5)
is -2
and CEILING(-1.5)
is -1
.
Sometimes you may wish to round them towards or away from zero.
Google Sheets has two related functions called FLOOR.MATH()
and CEILING.MATH()
. When given one or two arguments, they behave in the same way as FLOOR()
and CEILING()
respectively. However, you can pass a third argument that determined the direction of the rounding: passing a positive number (for example, 1
) to a third argument to make them round in the positive direction - towards zero.
That is, FLOOR.MATH(-1.57, 0.1, 1)
is -1.5
and CEILING.MATH(-1.57, 0.1, 1)
is -1.6
.
This exercise is part of the course
Intermediate Google Sheets
Exercise instructions
- In column
H
, take the perihelion and subtract the aphelion (columnG
minus columnF
) to create some negative numbers. - In column
I
, useFLOOR.MATH()
to round those differences to the next hundredth (0.01) towards zero. - In column
J
, useCEILING.MATH()
to round those differences to the next tenth (0.1) away from zero.
Hands-on interactive exercise
Turn theory into action with one of our interactive exercises
