What is a float's variable ? How decimal numbers works on Arduino? How to make operation with it?

Introduction

The float variables are used to store decimals numbers in your program.It correspond of all the positive and negative numbers with semicolon.

Here is how we declare a decimal number:

Arithmetic operation

On these decimals numbers, you can do arithmetical operations such addition, substraction and much more. Here is some examples:

  • Addition
  • Substraction
  • The maximum between two decimal numbers

The maximum between two decimal numbers can be useful to return the most important value of the two. We will see an example below:

You can also compare two decimal numbers in a if, for or while loop with comparison operators or even square root of a decimal number. You can find theses operators on our course mathematical functions.
 

How to convert an integer's variable or string's variable to a float's variable?

It is possible that you need to transform an variable int, string to a float. To do that you just have to add (float) before the variable to transform it to a decimal number.

Example with an integer variable:

Example with a string variable: